Two months on, post-Olympic blues grip Paris

PARIS: Swimmer Florent Manaudou is feeling glum, French MPs despair over a plummeting sports budget and the Eiffel Tower has lost its Olympic rings.

Two months after the flame went out on the glittering Paris Olympics and Paralympics, the French capital is in the grip of a bout of post-Games blues.Swimming superstar Leon Marchand, a four-time gold medallist, continues to impress in pools across the globe, but for his teammate Manaudou, the return to everyday life has proved difficult.

Manaudou, 33, was the first torch bearer on French soil when the Olympic flame arrived in Marseille in April and won two bronze medals in the pool in Paris -- but he wants to move on.

“It´s been very complicated emotionally since the end of the Games,” he said.“Everyone keeps plunging me back in. I don´t blame anyone, it´s completely normal but I want to move forward.

“I don´t want to be stuck in August 2024 for months and months.”In the capital, the dismantling of the temporary Olympic venues is almost complete.The Olympic rings have been taken down from the Eiffel Tower and the airborne cauldron in the Tuileries Gardens which proved such a hit has been taken down and is in search of a new home.

The grounds of the Palace of Versailles, which required major alterations to host the equestrian events, will not be completely restored until early next year.The lights have gone out at the local organising committee´s main headquarters in Saint-Denis and the body has moved to smaller premises north of Paris.

But its president Tony Estanguet remains hard at work, with estimations expected next month as to whether the budget exceeded 4.5 billion euros ($4.8 billion).The government has not yet revealed the entire bill for the latest public costs, including bonuses granted to police officers.

On Thursday, France´s general budget rapporteur, Charles de Courson, estimated that 1.9 billion euros had not been budgeted for.Minister Delegate for the Budget and Public Accounts, Laurent Saint-Martin, responded that the sum represented additional costs from using staff from the interior and defence ministries.

“Everyone will say ´it cost more than expected but given the image we left, it is well worth this excess,´” one former elected official insisted.In fact, increased consumption around the Olympics boosted French growth, with the economy expanding 0.4 percent in the July-September quarter.

On the other hand, declining funding for sport for 2025, against a backdrop of a dip in public finances, has upset almost all stakeholders.“Barely a month after the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, what remains of the ´great sporting nation´?” ecology lawmaker Jean-Claude Raux asked.

“We have the impression that nothing happened,” Belkhir Belhaddad, co-president of the Olympic monitoring group in the French parliament, told AFP.Nevertheless, sports clubs have seen their numbers rise, particularly in Paris where table tennis, fencing and swimming -- three sports in which France won Olympic medals -- have all seen a marked increase in interest.

Some Olympic initiatives have remained such as closing the emblematic Pont d´Iena bridge over the River Seine to traffic. The bridge, which links the Eiffel Tower to the Palais de Chaillot, is becoming a pedestrian zone.

In a darker reminder of the Games, the pressure group “The Other Side of the Medal” continues to denounce what it calls “the social cleansing” associated with the Olympics, referring to clearing out the homeless from Paris.

But as the memories of the summer fade, eyes are already turning towards the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.Prime Minister Michel Barnier has signed a guarantee that the French state will meet its financial commitments for those Games.

After triple Olympic canoeing champion Estanguet headed the Summer Games, Martin Fourcade, a five-time gold medallist in biathlon, is among the names touted as head of the organising committee for the winter edition.