This year France hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics. It’s an event the French have been looking forward to with pride mixed with apprehension since Paris was awarded the Games in 2017. The last time France hosted them was 1924, exactly 100 years ago. 

Organizing the Games is a major source of pride for a country. It is an avenue to promote national heritage and culture alongside the picture postcard backdrops of sporting events. However, the opportunity masks major concerns around the country.

Are we capable of producing an international event on this scale? The French exhibit an ambivalence of pride and concern toward it.Factors denounced by concerned observers include a disastrous environmental impact, security concerns over terrorism and cyber-attack, unstable social context, inefficient public transport. Many are apprehensive about the ability of a city of 2.1 million inhabitants to manage an expected influx of 15 million visitors. Others are quick to denounce a Games budget estimated at 8.8 billion euros at a time when the French government plans a 10-billion-euro budget cut in credits for public services.

The promise of the Paris Olympics is to take the Games out of the stadium to put sport back into everyday lives. I wonder about building appreciation and reception of the Olympics in the streets of small towns and villages. Local festivities, carnivals and folk events are key to this, in a year whose theme was sport and specifically the Games. 

I have seen local sports associations such as boxing, judo and swimming clubs in full swing, active in ways which are critical yet celebrate the XXXIII Olympiad.

shot locations: Istres, Cherbourg, Granville, Brie Comte-Robert, Chateau-Thierry, Plougastel-Daoulas