The good news for France is that their athletes have been winning some medals in the Paris Olympics. The bad news, well, that just keeps coming for the organisers and for Emmanuel Macron, who had wanted to use the Games to showcase his country. The latest debacle is the postponement of the men’s triathlon event this morning because the water in the River Seine is too filthy. Organisers can hardly say they weren’t warned.
Things clearly aren’t quite working out as Macron hoped. First there was the attack on the country’s rail network last Friday; the president had hoped the day would be all about the splendour of the Opening Ceremony, but instead the headlines were about the misery endured by nearly one million passengers as they sat waiting for trains that never arrived.
As for the opening ceremony itself, that was more a French farce than an Olympic extravaganza, an interminable parade of wokery that far from bringing the world together only served to underline the divisiveness of the dogma that progressives keep trying to ram down our throats. So bad was the ceremony that it achieved the remarkable feat of uniting Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marion Marechal, who one can safely say have never before agreed on anything. The pair expressed their distaste for the scene in which drag queens mocked the Last Supper, as did the Catholic church in France.
Many of the French intelligentsia were also aggrieved at the ceremony, among them the respected philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. He described it as ‘conformist’ and ‘decadent’ drivel, worse even than the Eurovision Song Contest, a grotesque spectacle lacking in ‘taste, grace, lightness, delicacy, elegance, beauty’.
‘The deluge that befell the City of Light could only be divine punishment,’ said Finkielkraut. ‘After that apocalyptic evening, I became a believer.’
The rain that tipped from the leaden skies during the ceremony capped a catastrophic day for Macron, although there was one final embarrassment in store for the president; some bright spark ran the Olympic flag up its pole upside down at the conclusion of the ceremony.
Still, farmers watching the ceremony on their televisions must have raised a cheer at the upside down flag. For nearly a year they have been reversing road signs across the country, a gesture designed to demonstrate their anger at a number of issues in the agricultural sector. The accompanying slogan is ‘On marche sur la tête’ (literally: ‘We’re walking on our heads’, but the best English translation would be: ‘It’s gone tits up’)
They may be the words on the lips of Olympic male triathletes this morning after they learned that their event has been postponed. The event was scheduled for today but it was cancelled following an inspection of the Seine at 3.30am. Tests conducted on the water found its cleanliness could endanger the health of competitors.
The men’s triathlon has been rescheduled for Wednesday morning at 10.45am, following on from the women’s event that begins at 8.45. That is provided it doesn’t rain today, as forecasts suggest it might, which could cause more sewage to flood into the river. The Seine had been declared safe last week but that was before Friday’s torrential downpour diminished the river’s water quality.
The total bill for the Paris Olympics is expected to be around nine billion euros (£7.6 billion)
It is a terrible situation for the triathletes, who have been training for this moment for years. In a statement, organisers blamed the postponement on ‘meteorological events beyond our control’. True, the weather is beyond their control – though any Parisian could have told them summer storms are common – but the organisers were forewarned about the Seine a year ago. A trial event was cancelled for the same reasons last summer, but the Paris Olympic committee assured the world they would be ready come the Games. ‘By 2024, new infrastructure will be delivered to further improve rainwater treatment to improve water quality,’ they promised.
It has cost 1.4 billion euros (£1.2 billion) to clean the Seine, money which at this stage doesn’t appear to have been well spent. The same could be said for the opening ceremony, the bill for which was 122 million euros (£100 million), three times higher than for the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics of 2012.
The total bill for the Paris Olympics is expected to be around nine billion euros (£7.6 billion), making it the fifth most expensive Games in history. Just outside the medals then. But if there are more cock-ups to come between now and the closing ceremony on 11 August, the Paris Games could get the gold medal for the most chaotic ever.
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