France might have lost the Olympic bid, but they still wish Britain well with the London games, finds susan bell |
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As Londoners begin to panic, amid rumours that the final cost of the 2012 Olympics could be £7bn or higher, one might imagine the Parisians - so confident of victory in July last year, and so gutted when they lost - would now be gloating over their rivals' misfortune.
Not so. Their reaction to London's troubles is a very French example of le fair play. "Just because we were competitors doesn't mean we are enemies," Jean-Paul Clemencon, head of the cabinet of the president of the French Olympic Committee, told The First Post yesterday.
Yet Clemencon has every reason to be furious. Paris had little to build compared with London - the Stade de France and other complexes were in place - and there were imaginative schemes to involve the whole city |
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| Now the French have seen how much the Games are going to cost they don’t want them anymore |
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in the Games. "It's true that we had a good project and all we had to do was build the Olympic Village, a swimming pool, a velodrome and a shooting gallery," said Clemencon, "while the London project was more virtual than real. But they won and I wish them every success. The English are pragmatic, they pull together in difficult times."
Mayor Betrand Delanoe (left), who led the €4.2bn (£2.84bn) French bid, declined to comment. Pierre Pointeau, a sports journalist at Agence France Presse, understands the silence. "Losing the 2012 Games was traumatic," he says. "It was a defeat, a humiliation if you like, and everyone just wants to turn the page."
Which doesn't mean there isn't a sense of relief. "Now they've seen how much the Games are going to cost London, they don't want them here anymore anyway," said Pointeau. Paris is not bothering to try for 2016 but is thought to have its eyes on 2024, 100th anniversary of the last Paris Games. 
FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 29, 2006
 Could London give up the Olympics?
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