Le Parisien’s front page summed up the Olympic Games with one word: “Merci” across a picture of the Eiffel Tower’s revolving beacon alighting on the balloon and cauldron. “The incredible 15 days of Paris Games closed last night in beauty at the Stade de France. It owes its success to the tireless work of the organisers, to their crazy vision and the mobilisation of thousands of volunteers,” it wrote, adding inside: “It’s hard to say goodbye.”
The paper was less enthusiastic about the closing ceremony. “In the end, the athletes paraded during the closing ceremony but were overshadowed in favour of the decor. We spent a good part of the evening not really understanding what was happening. And we weren’t the only ones. The athletes who had stood quietly after their traditional parade were firmly asked to leave …” It said the evening was finally boosted by Tom Cruise.
Not everyone agreed and in response to criticism about Cruise’s presence the French sports minister, Amélie Oudéa‑Castera, said: “Stop always looking for controversies.” Ouest-France, the country’s bestselling regional newspaper, published a list of “tops and flops” of the closing ceremony. “Tops” included Cruise, the handover of the Olympic flame by France’s quadruple gold‑medallist swimmer Léon Marchand, the music performances by Phoenix, Air, the DJ Kavinsky and the Belgian singer Angèle, and the floating piano as well as the “golden dancer” performance.
“Flops”, it said, were the performance of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers from Los Angeles, the women’s marathon medal ceremony, which is traditionally included in the closing ceremony but, the paper declared, “spoiled the ambience”, and the film of the people’s marathon, when ordinary runners followed the Olympic marathon route after the official race.
A number of observers tried to make sense of the sci-fi scenes at the start of the closing spectacle with a pre-recorded interview with the man in the golden outfit, Arthur Cadre, a dancer from Brittany.
L’Equipe reported that 17.1 million people watched the closing ceremony on France 2 public television, the second‑highest viewing figure after the 23.2 million who watched the opening ceremony.
The centre-right daily Le Figaro carried several pages on the legacy of “unforgettable days for France”. On the closing ceremony, it said: “If the show was not as grandiose as the opening ceremony, a number of spectacular visual scenes will be remembered.”
The left-leaning Libération wrote: “The closing show ended on a more conventional note [than the opening], with a showcase of the French Touch, glittering acrobatics and an attempt to kill Tom Cruise by throwing him off the roof of a stadium, before heading off to LA to see what the Yanks have up their sleeves. Are we done? Well, we’re packed up and ready to go. And good night.”
After the closing ceremony Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said: “For the last two weeks, Paris has lit up the world. I want to tell you of our immense pride: pride to have shown the whole world our exceptional cultural heritage, proud to have shared our sense of hospitality with tourists from around the world, proud to have been the place of harmony and peace which we have dreamed of for so many years.”
There was plenty of commentary on France finishing fifth in the medal table. “The closing ceremony was marked by the emotion of the victories and defeats of the athletes, notably the French who were playing at home,” said Europe 1. “A small black note, however: the low number of gold medals [for France]. With 16 of them, it’s a record, but Les Bleus lost lots of finals and that has some way to improve.” Le Monde struck a more positive note, saying it was “Mission Accomplished” for the French team.
