Arrogant Macron hopes Paris Olympics will be bigger than London – but string of horrors in Paris sparks fears it’ll flop
STARING up at the huge Olympics logo on Paris’s city hall, Mathilde Hoesch reveals her firm plans for when the Games begin.
“I’m getting out and heading for the South of France,” the student tells me.
“At first I thought the Olympics were a great idea, but in the past few months everything’s gone badly.”
Many here say they will be joining Mathilde in a mass exodus from the French capital as the sporting jamboree threatens to become an organisational flop.
With fewer than 100 days to go, there are deep concerns over security, untreated sewage in the River Seine and a creaking transport network.
Meanwhile, campaigners have accused the authorities of “social cleansing” and “hiding poverty” after migrants and the homeless were cleared from the streets.
There are fears binmen will go on strike during the Games — leaving the city stinking with uncollected rubbish and crawling with rats.
Many also dread the return of the blood-sucking bed bugs which plagued the French capital last year.
It all leaves French president Emmanuel Macron’s dream of outshining Les Rosbifs’ triumphant 2012 Games in severe jeopardy.
Macron — a preening showman nicknamed Jupiter after the all- powerful Roman god — is desperate to add some Olympic lustre to his flagging premiership.
One of his aides said: “This is the first European Games since London 2012, and Mr Macron knows it will be even better.”
The French leader has staked much on a lavish opening ceremony, which is planned to take place on the River Seine that snakes through Paris.
‘We’ve nowhere to go’
The idea is for 10,500 athletes on 116 barges to meander through the City of Light for almost four miles as the sun sets.
A no-fly zone will extend for a radius of 93 miles for six hours, and 45,000 cops will line the route which will showcase Paris’s architecture and finish opposite the Eiffel Tower.
Yet many Parisians fear the July 26 spectacle is a catastrophic folly.
At his vintage book stall on the banks of the Seine, Luc Sirop claims the vast security cordon will be inadequate.
Motioning to the other side of the river, he made a gun shape with his hand and said: “Anyone could have rented a flat there two years ago and be planning something.”
Luc, 60, who has sold books at the tourist location opposite Ile de la Cite for 25 years, added: “The boats will pass us here. It’s so dangerous.”
Astonishingly, organisers are still short of 8,000 security guards for the Games, including 1,400 personnel required for the Seine spectacular.
France is on high alert following the massacre of 145 innocents by terrorists linked to the Islamic State group at Crocus City Hall outside Moscow last month.
When IS suicide bombers attacked Paris in 2015, killing 130 people, their first target was the Stade de France, the Olympic centrepiece stadium.
Uncertainty over the opening ceremony has already led to crowds for the four-hour nautical parade being scaled down by around half to 320,000 people.
And President Macron says France has a “plan B and a plan C” if forced to cancel the river parade for security reasons.
It may see formalities taking place at the Trocadero, opposite the Eiffel Tower, instead.
Residents and motorists will need a QR code to enter an area along the Seine and around Olympic venues before and during the Games.
Some here believe France is going too far in sacrificing civil liberties.
A recent Ipsos poll found just 47 per cent of French people thought the country capable of organising a successful Games, while 53 per cent said they were interested in it.
The event’s eco-credentials are hurt by holding the surfing contest in French overseas territory Tahiti, a 22-hour flight from Paris.
Yet there is no doubt this city of tree-lined boulevards and monumental squares makes a stunning backdrop for the Games.
The Olympic rings motif will adorn the Eiffel Tower, high above the beach volleyball court currently under construction there.
But those walking beside the Seine this week would have seen another side of a city immortalised with air-brushed beauty in Netflix drama Emily In Paris.
A migrant camp of ramshackle tents has built up on its banks opposite Ile Saint-Louis and directly outside Paris’s city hall.
There appear to be no toilet facilities for the 200 or so asylum seekers and the stench of urine is overpowering.
On plastic fences around four tents opposite Notre Dame cathedral, still being rebuilt after its calamitous fire in 2019, someone has scrawled “Migrants Go Home”.
Passer-by Katarine, 64, who dec-lined to give her second name, said: “The authorities have tried to move them but they just come back.”
Migrants in the camp told me they were hungry and destitute.
Suleyman Sangare, 17, of Guinea, West Africa, said: “If they move us, where will we go? I don’t want to watch the Olympics, I just want somewhere to live.”
Mamadou Kamara, 16, from the Ivory Coast, also in West Africa, told me: “We are living in misery. Of course we will be moved but we’ve got nowhere to go.”
Nearby, a homeless man lies sprawled amid his meagre belongings on the Seine’s bank, apparently drunk, as Parisians enjoy lunchtime sandwiches in the sun.
The swirling waters of the river — the setting for marathon swimming and the triathlon — are also under the microscope.
The charity Surfrider Foundation says the river is awash with “pollution of faecal origin” — untreated sewage. It found “alarming” bacteria levels after taking samples over a six-month period.
No Parisian would ever go into the river
Actually, I had a friend who once did and he got a bad infection
Mathilde 19
Surfrider’s Marc Valmassoni said: “Bathers are exposed to illnesses such as gastroenteritis, conjunctivitis, ear infections and skin problems.”
The city is banking on a new treatment plant at Austerlitz Bridge to clean up the water and says that summer rainfall levels should mean less sewage overflow into the river.
If tests prove the water is still contaminated come July, the swimming events can be postponed until later in the Games when conditions might have improved.
But politics student Mathilde, 19, is revolted by the idea of swimming in the Seine.
“No Parisian would ever go into the river,” she revealed.
“Actually, I had a friend who once did and he got a bad infection.”
But at Paris’s city hall this week, Mayor Anne Hidalgo told me the Seine clean-up work “is done”.
The Socialist Party politician, 64, insisted she will prove it in June by taking to the water herself.
She said: “I want to be the first mayor to swim in the Seine.
“Many people ask me, ‘Is it real, you want to swim in the Seine?’ I say, ‘Yes’ because it’s essential for us. For the people it will be a revolution.”
Macron has also vowed to take a dip in the river before the Games, although seeing him in budgie smugglers might not be many’s idea of Olympic viewing.
Paris expects around 15.3million visitors, 15,000 athletes and 34,000 journalists, and many fear the city will be clogged.
Engineer Remi Liederman, 24, said: “The transportation system will be over-saturated. I don’t think it’s fit for that many people.”
Unions here also threaten chaos during the Olympics, and France are gold medallists at protesting and striking.
“Anger is growing, and the Olympics will be the perfect time to express it,” said trade unionist Gilles Arnault.
“The eyes of the world will be on Paris, and it will be a time to make a point.”
Last year binmen went on strike, leaving 200ft mounds of rubbish.
And there are fears a bed bug infestation that plagued the city until late 2023 could return.
In Place de la Concorde, Serena Skinner has had her home treated for the insects.
The dancer, 23, said a pest controller told her “one person in five has bed bugs and doesn’t know it”.
Serena is not keen on the QR security codes, describing it as “dystopian”.
So what will she be doing as the Games reach their track-and-field climax in August?
Like many seemingly unmoved by Macron’s extravagant Olympic dream, she will be holidaying far away from the teeming streets of Paris.
