Paris threw its last Olympics party on Saturday, a buoyant, nostalgia-tinged celebration of the 2024 Games that drew tens of thousands of cheering spectators to the streets of the French capital for a parade of athletes and an outdoor concert around the Arc de Triomphe.
The festivities started with smoky blue, white and red fireworks, echoing the start of the opening ceremony on the Seine. Flag-waving crowds then roared and sang France’s national anthem as more than 300 French Olympic and Paralympic contestants paraded up the Champs-Élysées on a giant white runway.
“Thank you all,” Teddy Riner, the French judo legend, told ecstatic spectators as they sounded air horns and chanted athletes’ names. “It was incredible!”
Medal-winning athletes were later decorated with state honors, some of them by retired French sports legends, and a handful were honored by President Emmanuel Macron himself. France won 64 medals, putting it in the top five of the Olympics medals count. And it earned 75 medals at the Paralympics.
After night fell, the Olympic cauldron floated into the air one last time and a highlight reel of the Games was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. Performers from the opening and closing ceremonies also returned for an encore on a ring-shaped stage around the famous monument (including Philippe Katerine, a.k.a blue Smurf guy.) French fencers, rugby players and others led the concertgoers through giant karaoke sessions.
It was a day of summer revelry before the fall doldrums set in, the end of an Olympic bubble that enchanted France and allowed it to forget, for a time, its current political turmoil and a looming government budget crunch. It was also a final opportunity to watch the Phryges, the widely beloved mascots of the Paris Games, in all their googly-eyed glory.
“We rose to the challenge and it went very well,” said Marie-Laure Bordes, 48, peeking from the back of the crowd to catch a glimpse of the Champs-Élysées, where thousands of volunteers and staff members from the organizing committee also paraded to widespread applause. She cited the smooth organization and euphoric mood as her family’s highlights of the Games.
“And Léon Marchand!” her teenage son said, referring to the French swimming superstar,
“Now that it’s over,” Ms. Bordes added, “there is a feeling of nostalgia.”
Spectators said they rushed to snap up the free tickets to the event, largely to relive the unexpected unity and fervor that gripped Paris during the Games after months of hand-wringing about whether France would be ready — and enthusiastic enough — for the Games.
“France is a grumpy place,” said Maryline Bregeon, 63, a retiree who volunteered at the opening ceremony and at the horseback riding events at Versailles. But the mood shifted noticeably during the Games, she said on the sidelines of the parade, wearing her official turquoise volunteer jersey.
“People were talking to each other on public transit,” she marveled. “Usually that never happens.”
France’s leaders are keen to capitalize on that spirit.
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower, at least until Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Games, although her plans have run into opposition.
Mr. Macron wants to make Sept. 14 a national day to celebrate sports. Weakened politically after inconclusive snap elections and forced to appoint a conservative prime minister who is not from his party, the French president has tried to portray the Games as an example of much-needed national unity.
“Who could understand that we know how to reach out and surpass ourselves to make the Olympic and Paralympic Games a success, but that we can’t do the same to build France and respond to the urgent needs of the French people?” Mr. Macron told Le Parisien, a newspaper, on Friday.
Mustapha Belfodil, 33, an Algerian doctor who works in Grenoble, in the French Alps, said he had taken a week off to volunteer as a medic at the track and field events — and had no regrets.
“I wanted to relive these moments,” he said at the parade, citing the victories by Mr. Marchand and the triumph of Imane Khelif, the gold-medal-winning Algerian boxer, as among his favorites.
But in the end, he said, “there were too many to choose from.”
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