Paris Olympics is not just sport: it is about presenting a new French identity to the world | Philippe Auclair

Not everything has worked but few other nations would have had the temerity to stage an opening in such fashion

Let’s face it, it was a failure. The rain, as if unleashed by a vengeful Olympian god upset at seeing what had become of the original Games, failed to derail the extravaganza devised by Thomas Jolly, as Poseidon’s storms had failed to prevent Odysseus from reaching Ithaca. The saboteurs who paralysed most of France’s TGV system on the eve of the opening ceremony failed too. One way or another, hundreds of thousands of drenched onlookers found a way to line the banks of the Seine to salute athletes and artists alike. And so did the rightwingers who had choked in their café crème when they’d heard that French-Malian Aya Nakamura was to perform on the big night, which she did, horror of horrors, with the Republican Guard in full parade garb, closing her skit with a Charles Aznavour song.

Argentina had done even better. France’s new sporting villains, since Chelsea footballer Enzo Fernández posted a video of the Copa América winners singing racist and homophobic chants aimed at Les Bleus in the Argentinian dressing room, managed to fail even before the Olympic cauldron had been set alight by Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec. What’s more, they were sent packing from the sevens tournament by Antoine Dupont’s team, in the Stade de France – and while Argentina’s populist leader Javier Milei was the awkward guest of president Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. It couldn’t have been worse; yet, somehow, it couldn’t have been better. “WE DID IT!”, exclaimed a jubilant Macron on his X account.