2024 Olympics | Paris: The city of words, wine, and everything nice

Leila Slimani, a French writer, reviewing a book in NYT, wrote that she was once approached by a Japanese tourist in Paris.

“Where are the writers? I would like to see the writers,” said the tourist.

She explained to the tourist that well, things have changed a bit and there are not many writers, though many great writers and painters used to live in Paris.

Slimani too had come to Paris to become a writer. And she did.

“For me, Paris was literature, its heart and its capital — the city of exiled writers, cursed poets, and existentialist philosophers. And even today, I believe that there is no other city in the world that gives so much importance to writers: those of the past, whose ghosts continue to haunt the streets, and those of the present, too, whom passers-by recognise as they would a singer or an actress. I have never lived in another city where literature was so important.”

Cultural capital of the world

Paris is, in many ways, the cultural capital of the world. That is where much of modern literature, painting, and everything fantastic originated. All writers and painters in the last hundred years or so went to stay for a while in Paris. Many stayed back, unable to resist the allure of Parisian life and its cafes. Indian painters Raza and Viswanathan are good examples.

Amrita Sher Gill and her family lived for a long time in Paris. In 1914, while in Paris and staying in Rue Bassano, her father Umrao Singh, who was one of the earliest and great Indian pioneering photographers, “took some of Amrita’s most vivid photographs, intimate photographs that constitute a clear shift from a colonial perception of the Indian subject to one of an individuated bourgeoisie family,” a historian has written.

Paris did this to you: you became a creator of great things. This is where much of great renaissance art was created and now resides in the Louvre museum.

A city that embodies human ambition, grandeur and beauty. A city which maintains its classic grandeur despite its many overhauls, Paris will now be hosting the Olympics for the third time - the first in 1900, then in 1924, and now a hundred years later in 2024.

In fact, the modern Olympics itself was created by a Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin in the 1890s. He was obsessed with the education system in England and decided that a new method of education was needed in France. In 1892, in a lecture in Sorbonne University, he outlined his vision for a reestablishment of the Olympics.

In 1894, his drive and vision resulted in the return of the Olympics, and in 1896 he was elected the second president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

First modern Olympics in Athens in 1896

The first modern Olympics was held in Athens in 1896 with 14 countries participating. It is not a surprise that a global movement originated in the centre of culture and learning. It is well-deserved also that it is going back to the city after a hundred years.

Yet for a city that has inspired and was the venue of great creations, Paris is a small city (42 square miles), only one-eighth that of Berlin, or even Brooklyn which is three-fourth bigger or London which is 15 times bigger. A leisurely stroll across its central arrondissements, from the place de l’Étoile in the west to the place de la Bastille in the east, takes less than an hour and a half.

“Seen from up high, from the hills of Montmartre and Belleville or from the Eiffel Tower, you can see the splendid geometric street plan – a masterpiece of city-building – laid out in glory in front of you, adorned with the foliage of trees,” Ben Wilson wrote in the ‘History of Metropolis’.

'Living in France is closest to life in Paradise'

For many years and even today, Paris has been romanticised due to its history. Many writers have compared living in France as the closest to life in Paradise. Books like We have always had Paris… and Provence (A scrapbook of our life in Paris) by Patricia and Walter Wells, Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, and Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon have been best-sellers, among the many.

The river Seine runs through the city, and sailing events will be held there. Only temporary venues have been built, one next to the Versailles Palace on the outskirts of the city and one on the lawns next to the Eiffel Tower. So the cost of staging the Olympics has been kept down to 4 billion euros.

Financial burden kept to minimum

Normally, the cost of hosting the Olympics is close to $25 billion. It is believed that the burden was so much to bear for Athens that the economy of Greece itself collapsed after it staged the 1996 Olympics in its hundredth year. But France, being a leading economy, will face none of such issues with the infrastructure already existing. The new buildings, especially the housing units for the athletes, are all environment-friendly. Two huge restaurants for the Olympics are converted old buildings.

City of many struggles

Its creative genius apart, Paris is also the city of many struggles, taking off from the French Revolution in 1789. There’s nothing better that a Frenchman loves than a good fight in the streets. In 1924, just before the Olympics started, all the chefs went on a strike.

Leftist labour strikes are notorious in Paris. In an article “Histoire De La Rue” (The History of the French Street), Danielle Tartakowsky examined this phenomenon.

“Sometimes, protestors occupy streets and erect barricades, at other times they disappear down side streets, leaving burnt tyres and smashed windows in their wake. The sight of heavily-armed French riot police facing off against flag-waving activists might make it seem that the state has the upper hand, but the police and those who command them know they are vulnerable,” a reviewer of “Histoire De La Rue” wrote.

Democratic right to protest

For the last two or three years, various labourers have been on strike in France once every week, protesting against labour and retirement reforms, often bringing the city to a grinding halt. At least twice, the strike has caused riots. But no effort was made to break the strike, which is seen as a democratic right. The French handle it all with a sense of acceptance.

Opening ceremony outside the stadium

Finally, Paris will once again be at the centre of the world when the athletes sail down the Seine in the first opening ceremony that is to be held outside the stadium. By the side of the Seine, the rebuilt Notre Dame cathedral will stand proudly as if to signal a resurrection. It is a big risk to use a river for a grand spectacle. But the French have done it time and again.

Centre of high fashion

Apart from all this, Paris is also the centre of high fashion. Thousands of visitors while walking along the grand boulevards flowing out in three directions from the Arc de Triomphe will feel they are walking the ramp. Paris will be preening itself like never before. And, needless to say, the top chefs will be serving the classiest of high-dining dishes.

Then nobody will remember what Victor Hugo said after Paris was rebuilt, on Napoleon’s orders, from a stinking city to a modern one.

“No more anarchic streets, running freely, crammed full,” lamented Victor Hugo. “No more caprice; no more meandering crossroads.”

Next Saturday: Paavo Nurmi and Emile Zatopek, the two runners who changed the Olympics