A Mix of Sport, Culture

PARIS —  Really, now, who wouldn’t want to go to Paris for the Olympic Games?

Who wouldn’t be enchanted by beach volleyball by the Eiffel Tower? Who wouldn’t thrill at the sight of the world’s best running the marathon along the world’s most famous boulevard, the Champs Elysee?

Think about it, suggests Paris 2008 bid boss Claude Bebear. The Olympic Games go on for 17 days. Where would you rather be? Beijing? Toronto?

Or Paris?

To answer that question is to understand why Paris has emerged as such a formidable contender for the 2008 Games.

The French, meantime, want the Games not only for the usual reason--to proclaim the glories of Paris and of France--but, they insist, to promote racial and social harmony in a racially fractured France, across Europe and elsewhere.

Their thinking goes like this: The 1998 soccer World Cup, in France, was won by France. Darker-skinned players were the team’s stars. Yet all of France erupted with joy.

After the World Cup, Paris’ intellectual, financial and cultural elites embraced sport as “an instrument for social change,” as Noel de Saint Pulgent, now executive director of the Paris 2008 bid, put it.

The Olympics would be a way to integrate--literally and figuratively--the numbers of new immigrants from Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere who have landed in recent years in France.

“There are many minorities in Paris,” Bertrand Delanoe, Paris’ newly elected and openly gay mayor, said in an interview. “The trick is to incorporate them all together but not lose anyone’s uniqueness, and to make everyone feel part of the Games.”

It is a measure of Paris’ readiness for the 2008 Games that the city already boasts 140,000 hotel rooms. The International Olympic Committee requires 40,000.

Of the 39 venues that would be used, only 17 need to be built. Nine of those 17 would be permanent, including a 50-meter pool; incredibly, there is no such pool anywhere in Paris. The other eight would be temporary, and Paris 2008 officials have said that at the end of the Games they would ship some of the temporary facilities--badminton, volleyball, basketball, handball--to needy countries, perhaps in Africa.

Such promises, along with France’s long history of promoting sports in Africa, could be key for Paris’ chances. A victory for Paris would assuredly require support from African nations.

Plans for the Olympic Village call for construction in a run-down area in the near-northern suburbs near the spaceship-like Stade de France, where the World Cup final was played. The precinct has been reserved for the Games if Paris wins in 2008; if not, the area would be opened to other development.

It is indicative of the French sense of government entitlement--and yet responsibility--that plans take into consideration the 1,500 people who would be displaced by construction of the village. Nearly all are immigrants.

French officials say the residents would be moved, whether they want to, but without question to better housing.

“It’s not really a question of moving people around,” the mayor said. “The thing is to make the best Olympic Village possible.”

Paris’ more fundamental problem may be that many in the IOC are uneasy over coordination between French law enforcement and the IOC’s absolute insistence of control over the Games, as regards doping issues.

French authorities have been increasingly aggressive since the 1998 Tour de France was marred by a doping scandal.

In addition, Paris being Paris may ultimately work against the French.

In 2004, the Summer Games will be in Athens. The 2006 Winter Games are in Turin, Italy. To go to Europe again in 2008 would appear to diminish odds for other European cities--London and Madrid, among them--interested in bidding for the 2012 Summer Games. That would give some European IOC members a reason to consider anyone but Paris for 2008.

Bebear, meantime, has issues of his own. He was placed under investigation a couple of days ago for alleged involvement in a money-laundering case not connected to the Olympics but to his time as chairman of France’s largest insurance group, Axa SA. He stepped down as its chairman last year.

Not to worry, Bebear said. For one, he said he is innocent. For another, he said, “I’ve talked with a lot of IOC members. A lot of them, they’ve had problems of their own with judges in their countries.”

He said his focus is on the task at hand: “It has to be clear the best bid is Paris.”

Echoed the mayor: “This is the part of the bid which is the most fun. It’s so everyone can take advantage of what’s wonderful about Paris.”