Aristidis Vafeiadakis/IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
She’s on the way, but where? Stefanos Douskos starts with the Olympic flame (Olympia, April 16, 2024)
The famous torch that carries the Olympic flame every four years from the Temple of Hera in the Greek town of Olympia to the world of big sports business left the quiet olive grove in the Peloponnese on Tuesday. Where exactly it should be carried wasn’t entirely clear, even on this sunny, hot summer day. This year, the organizer of the Olympic Games (July 26th to August 11th) is Paris, at least that is certain. The question has so far remained unanswered as to whether the opening ceremony can actually be celebrated on the waters of the Seine – as planned by Head of State Emmanuel Macron and Anne Hidalgo, mayor of the French capital. Even up to 50,000 uniformed and civilian forces could not adequately protect such a gigantic event in times of war like these.
Even the president himself was not sure on Monday whether the fire lit in Olympia should not be handed over to the central competition venue “Stade de France” and the whole circus on the Seine should be called off. The government has “prepared withdrawal scenarios,” and of course there has long been a “Plan B and even a Plan C,” the head of state revealed in an interview with the broadcaster BFM TV and thus confused the organizers of the major event, headed by the Sports Minister Amélie Ouéda-Castéra, who he himself appointed.
Ouéda-Castéra, the Parisian daily noted sadly on Tuesday Release, stands for the division in French society like no other politician. And for the unholy alliance of Olympic sports with big international capital, one must add. Macron’s wife for the Olympics is not only a graduate of the politically and economically liberal management school ENA (École Nationale d’Administration), she was also a professional tennis player herself and then an executive of the supermarket chain Carrefour and the insurance giant Axa – incidentally one of the main sponsors of the 33rd edition of the modern games. Her husband Frédéric Ouéda, former head of the major bank Société Générale, which was once burdened with offshore affairs, is now president of the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi.
Of course, the games and their opening spectacle, whether on water or at the Stade de France, require money. Maintaining relationships with the sponsors, known as “official partners,” is undoubtedly easy for the minister – she is part of this universe herself and, when she was still on the payroll of the French Tennis Association as a manager, believed that she was “completely underpaid” with an annual salary of 500,000 euros. These partners include Coca-Cola, Axa and the luxury goods group LVMH owned by French multi-billionaire and Macron aide Bernard Arnault. The costs for the entire games were initially estimated at 6.8 billion euros. Nine billion euros are now estimated, but it could probably reach “at least ten to twelve” billion euros, as French media report. Ouéda-Castéra nevertheless insists on the government’s calculation, according to which the games will “finance themselves.”
