Column | When the Olympics return to Paris

Paris has never been just another capital city. The City of Lights, known for its romance, culture and liberal values, has witnessed a wide array of political events and economic developments that have shaped the modern world. Sporting events are no exception.

The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games have returned to Paris, exactly a century after the city last hosted the world’s largest sporting celebration. Coincidentally, the French capital is also the hometown of Pierre de Coubertin – the founder of the modern Olympics who believed that “sport can contribute to world peace by promoting mutual understanding and respect among nations”.

The 1924 Paris Olympics, organised at a time when the world was still coping with the aftermath of World War I, featured the first-ever Olympic Village. During the 1920s, it was quite unthinkable that athletes from former warring nations would stay in adjacent portable wooden huts in the Olympic Village, sharing amenities such as hairdressing salons and restaurants.

Today, it is hard to imagine the Olympics without a global Games Village. Around 14,000 athletes and staff from more than 200 countries attending Paris 2024 are housed in a thoughtfully designed Olympic and Paralympic Village located on the banks of the Seine River.

Does the Paris Olympics, occurring at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, hold any political significance beyond being the biggest international sporting event that routinely occurs every four years?

'Games Wide Open'
The history of the modern Olympics has been marked by power rivalries and violence, including the tragic massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Cold War era witnessed athletic rivalry between the Soviet bloc and the United States and its allies, with both sides using Olympic medals as a tool to assert political power and establish global dominance. Though not to the same extent, Paris'24 continues this trend with the ‘political’ participation of both war-affected Ukraine and Palestine. For Ukrainian and Palestinian athletes, winning a medal is not just a personal achievement, but an effort to draw more international attention and media coverage to the invasions at home.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has barred Russia from sending an official team to the Paris Olympics in response to its invasion of Ukraine. However, the IOC has allowed 15 Russian athletes to attend the Games as 'individuals,' without flags, national anthems, or emblems. Nevertheless, the apparent double standard of not banning Israel – given its ongoing military operations in Gaza, which have resulted in the deaths of nearly 40,000 civilians, and its defiance of International Court of Justice rulings – has become a hot political issue.

However, the Olympics have the potential to unite politically divided communities and positively influence global peace and stability. Achieving this, though, requires a genuine and impartial commitment to the principles of sportsmanship.

Consider the 2018 Winter Olympics, where the women's ice hockey teams from politically separated North and South Korea competed as a unified team and marched under a single 'Unified Korea' flag. This historic decision followed years of diplomatic engagements between the two Korean nations, which remain technically still at war.

"Sporting events have a significant impact on public opinion, which in turn influences politics. Such connections can indeed change the hearts and minds of South Korean and North Korean people, thereby impacting geopolitics," said Randi Griffin, a US academic of Korean descent who was also a member of the unified ice hockey team in 2018.

The Olympic spirit underscores values such as fair play, respect, and mutual understanding, serving as a profound testament to our shared humanity. With the slogan 'Games Wide Open,' the Paris Olympics promises vibrant cultural exchanges among athletes from diverse nationalities and offers hope for a better, more united world. This promise is what the world desperately needs, given the level of political turmoil and geopolitical uncertainties shaping contemporary times.

World on a short fuse
The world in 2024 is significantly more peaceful than it was a century ago. However, there are growing concerns that a major global conflict, potentially even a Third World War on the horizon.

The two current conflicts, the Russia-Ukraine war and the war between Israel and Hamas are intersecting with likely dangerous consequences. As Western nations generously supply weapons to Ukraine, Russia has formed military alliances in West Asia, including providing fighter jets and attack helicopters to Israel's archenemy, Iran. In return, Iran has provided thousands of 'kamikaze drones' – single-use explosive drones that the Russian army has extensively used in the Ukraine war.

On the domestic front, liberal Europe, along with many countries worldwide, is witnessing a rise in far-right movements that propagate hate and fear. In the recently concluded National Assembly elections, the National Rally – France's largest far-right party led by Marine Le Pen – emerged as the largest single party, leading to an unprecedented period of political and social uncertainty marked by clashes in major cities just ahead of the Olympic Games. Hours before the much-awaited Olympic inaugural ceremony, France’s high-speed train network was hit by coordinated arson attacks that paralyzed the country’s busiest rail lines.

A ray of hope
The Paris 2024 Olympics extend beyond mere stadium events; they are deeply integrated into the vibrant life of the city. Many of the historical landmarks and monuments that symbolise humanity's progress will serve as Olympic venues. For example, beach volleyball will be held under the iconic Eiffel Tower, fencing events will take place in the majestic Grand Palais exhibition hall, and triathlon and marathon swimming in the historic Seine River.

“In this difficult time for the world, Paris 2024 will have a message for brotherhood and humanity” says Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in the context of the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine. The Paris Mayor recently made global headlines by plunging into the Seine River, a central feature of the Olympic Games, now pollution-free and safe for swimming for the first time in a century.

When the Olympics return to Paris, the international community expects that the games will help alleviate mounting global tensions and promote peaceful coexistence both among nations and within them. What else can be expected from a city that embodies a confluence of cosmopolitanism, liberal ideals, and diverse human cultures, as clearly showcased in the opening ceremony?
(Social anthropologist and novelist Thomas Sajan and US-trained neurologist Titto Idicula, based in Norway, write on politics, culture, economy, and medicine.)