The 2024 Paris Olympics haven’t quite finished yet with one last parade of athletes on the Champs Elysées on Saturday, September 14.
This unusually late extra ceremony, ‘The Parade of Champions’, was inexplicably added at the behest of President Emmanuel Macron. A total of 182 French Olympic representatives, 78 of whom were medalists, as well as 137 Paralympic athletes participated in the Parade of Champions. A ring-shaped platform around the Arc de Triomphe monument marked the culmination of the parade’s route down the iconic boulevard in the French capital, which drew some 70,000 Parisians.
The event was attended by Michel Barnier, the new prime minister, and President Emmanuel Macron. Macron spoke at the ceremony and award state honours to French Olympians, Judo medal winner, Teddy Riner, and swimmer Leon Marchand.
Macron speaks of ‘national harmony’ brought about by Olympics
Macron’s glorification of the Olympic spirit, which he unironically stated had resulted in ‘national harmony,’ is set against the stark political reality of a sharply divided society that followed the July parliamentary elections and the Olympics which ended in rows over the biological sex of some athletes.
Macron recently named Barnier, the former Brexit negotiator for the European Union, to lead a new government earlier in September in response to a hung parliament, increasing social unrest, and mounting national debt.
The naming of right-wing Barnier as PM infuriated the left-wing coalition that secured the majority of seats in the National Assembly, but not enough to rule on its own. As a result, no party was able to secure a majority in France’s influential lower parliamentary chamber.
