Macron hugs France’s heroes as if he dares not let the Olympics pass | Paris 2024 Olympic Games

French President Emmanuel Macron is known for his enthusiastic embraces of sports stars, as footballer Kylian Mbappé can attest. Macron entered the pitch, somewhat awkwardly pulled Mbappé close and patted him on the head to console him after the defeat to Argentina at the last World Cup.

But at the Paris Olympics, Macron’s highly emotional approach to the country’s athletes surpassed anything that had come before.

At the edge of the judo ring, he hugged French gold medalist Teddy Riner, the country’s favorite sports star, and held him tightly as he looked him in the eye to congratulate him. He gave judo bronze medalist Romane Dicko a long hug, patted her hair several times, then wiped away her post-match tears with his thumbs. At the Stade de France, after France’s first gold medal in rugby sevens, he firmly grabbed scrum-half Antoine Dupont’s face to thank him for his Olympic success. At the poolside, he took swimmer Léon Marchand’s hand after one of his gold medals.

Political opponents have chafed at the president’s “clumsy” presence at events carefully selected for the national team’s victory. But Macron knows how important it is to capitalize on the “feel-good” factor in France. He was quick to compare the success of the Paris Games to the mood that prevailed in 1998 after France won the men’s World Cup, when then-president Jacques Chirac enjoyed a surge in popularity.

Macron’s popularity has been modest so far, according to an Elabe poll The Echoes On August 1, he found that 27% of French people trusted him to effectively manage the country’s problems, up two points from early July.

But as the closing ceremony draws to a close on Sunday evening, Macron will be plunged back into the difficulties of domestic politics.

A few weeks before the Olympics, Macron took the risk of calling early legislative elections, after the victory of the far right over his centrist party in the European elections. In the first round of the legislative elections, the far right made a surge, raising fears that Marine Le Pen’s party would take power before the Olympics.

But in the second round, the center and left parties came closer together against the far right. Thanks to a large-scale tactical vote, a left-wing alliance won most of the seats but failed to secure a functional majority in parliament. Macron is now under pressure to appoint a new prime minister before the Paralympic Games opening ceremony on August 28, but there is no indication from which party he or she might come.

Macron has put domestic policy on hold for the Games – an “Olympic truce,” as he has called it – and is relying on a caretaker government that has already resigned.

The president did not stay in Paris for the entire event: he went to the presidential summer residence on the Mediterranean. But he returned for a moment of triumph: Friday, August 2, now known in France as Gold Medal Friday. His plane landed in the Paris suburbs in the afternoon and he greeted the French riders, then went to beach volleyball, rushed to congratulate Riner and Dicko in judo, headed to the pool for Marchand’s gold, then drove to Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines for the BMX race, where France won gold, silver and bronze.

When Macron announced over the weekend that France would hold a parade of French athletes on the Champs-Élysées on September 14, before inviting them to a reception at the Élysée Palace where he could thank them personally, it became clear that he intended to keep the sport in the spotlight well beyond the Paralympics.

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It remains to be seen how much Macron will be able to capitalize on the Olympics. Before the Games, public opinion was marked by pessimism, anxiety, and confusion about national politics. It was unclear, particularly on the left, why Macron had called early elections and ignored the result by not appointing a new government in time for the event.

Sporting euphoria does not always have a lasting impact on French politics, as Macron discovered in 2018, a year after his first election victory, when France won the men’s World Cup. yellow vests Protests against the fuel tax have led to the largest anti-government demonstrations in years.

The question remains who will benefit most politically from the Games. Paris’s bid was largely prepared by the left, and left-wing local leaders – including Paris’s Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, and the Socialist mayors of surrounding cities like Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen – have been at the forefront. But Valérie Pécresse, the right-wing president of Île-de-France, the region in which Paris is located, has also played a major role, alongside Macron’s centrists.

Macron has tried to argue that it shows how French politicians from different parties can work together. But with the new parliament deeply divided and facing an uphill battle to pass a budget in the fall, the Olympic boost is unlikely to be enough to smooth over long-term political tensions.