Press Interpreter

07/06/05 -- Paris has lost, and its executioner is called London. The British capital will host the 2012 Olympics. It was a candidacy that was called for the past two months unrealistic by a number of Olympic "specialists." Tony Blair will have triumphed over Jacques Chirac once more. London won its bid in the fourth round of selection, after the successive elimination of Moscow, New York, Madrid, and Paris.

"We don't have the same culture of lobbying as the Anglo-Saxons," said Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris (speaking in the July 6 Le Monde). The verdict has come down: the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have followed Sebastian Coe, the patron of the London candidacy, who, in so many words, had promised, at the time of his speech before them, to greatly "help" their athletes and their sports federations if they would choose his city.

The IOC and its members love rituals. The "D Day" ceremony has not changed for a long time. A quick introduction by the president, an hour-long presentation by each of the candidate cities, followed by questions posed to their representatives by five members of the IOC. At the end of this marathon, IOC members meet alone in conclave to vote. They have been, beforehand, equipped with an electronic voting box chosen at random of the kind that is designed to assure the confidentiality of the choice of the 114 "great electors." The winner must obtain the majority of explicit votes (electors can abstain or cast an empty vote).

In their final presentations, the candidate cities had endeavored to demonstrate that their technical plans responded to IOC norms (high quality installations, a center for accommodating and training the athletes, welcome areas, press offices, etc.); and that they were capable of guaranteeing the security of the games and their generous financing.

The Candidacy Film

Good luck or bad? Paris went first. The presentation was carried out by three people: the mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, the head of state, Jacques Chirac, and Jean-Claude Killy, without doubt of the three French members of the IOC (along with Guy Drut and Henri Serandour) the most appreciated by his peers. The presentation was punctuated by a promotional film by Luc Besson which one might say was of quite good quality for this required genre, if lacking in originality. The entire presentation was accompanied by Charles Trenet, Revoir Paris, and then Douce France.

The great pillars of the Paris candidacy were successively evoked. The games would be on "a human scale," as president Rogge described them. Bertrand Delanoe assured the IOC that the Paris games would be "without waste or excess." "We are committed," he declared, "to organizing games that will be popular, uniting, ecological, and ethical."

After Jean-Claude Killy had said how much he looked forward to "this rare event, this pure marvel," M. Delanoe tried to do him one better by evoking the "magic" and "heritage" created by the games, which transform "places and spirits." Sustainable development, financial basis, transportation facilities, low-priced tickets, satisfied sponsors, one thing after another, from Patrick Braouezec, Communist mayor of Saint-Denis, to Arnaud Lagardere, patron of the group, to Michel Drucker, to Anne-Marie Idrac, PDG of the RATP, and Francois Chereque (CFDT) and Bernard Thibault (CGT), each had a role in the film in order to show how much "France united" awaited the opportunity that the IOC ought to offer it. Dominique de Villepin pledged that Paris could guarantee a "discrete effectiveness" with respect to security.

The "nail" in the French presentation was certainly Jacques Chirac. Coming as "a friend of the Olympic movement," he pledged the assistance of the "emotion" and the "great passion" that had overcome him 19 years after his first appearance before them. It was a required performance, executed without mistake.

His speech was followed by applause, as was the exit of the delegation, which came after it answered questions of a distressing poverty, save for those on the subject of anti-doping requirements. The sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, appeared reassuring: French law would submit itself to the norms of the IOC.

Spoils of Obsequiousness

The New York delegation had followed, to the letter, the same script. It too organized a parade of notables from the worlds of politics and sports (Hillary Clinton, mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a range of Olympic champions with Muhammad Ali at their head). The New York candidacy film, prepared by Steven Spielberg, was, paradoxically, less successful than the French film, in spite of the presence in it of the former president, Bill Clinton, and the current one, George W. Bush. Perhaps the master is less blessed in the art of promotion than the student, Besson.

With a less sharp resume (the city has no stadium), New York based its presentation on two arguments. First, this world-city deserves the Olympics. It would be for the members of the IOC to reflect on the fact that if they refused New York the games for 2012, nothing guaranteed that New York would compete for them again. Second, if it obtained the games, New York would mobilize means for "helping" the athletes of the world and increasing the number of medaled nations. The message was directed to the IOC members representing poorer nations -- in voting for the American candidacy, they would be assured of "commodities" that others would not necessarily offer them.

Particularly weak in images and in quality, with stiff speakers that evoked the soviet era, the Moscow presentation was followed, according to the schedule, by the presentations, much awaited, of London and Madrid, the two cities that all prognosticators considered Paris's most dangerous adversaries. Moscow was eliminated in the first round, then New York, then Madrid.

The tone of the London presentation: "Ask us," Sebastian Coe, the president, tossed out to the IOC members, "why our delegation consists more of young people than of businessmen and politicians?"

In reality, "D Day" had begun Tuesday evening, with the official opening ceremonies. It is necessary to attend to understand what, once every four years, is the real power of the IOC. What other group than the IOC allows itself to seat its members in the center of a great theater and to place heads of state or of government, as well as kings, along the sides?

Thus Jacques Chirac was seated at the foreground but at the extreme left and at a remove. Tony Blair had to content himself with the sixth row. Far in the back, near the Queen of Spain, Jose Luis Zapatero was even less lucky. And Hillary Clinton was even further back.

The reason? The world's powerful are here beggars. It is they who seek, without fear of using the spoils of obsequiousness, to gain the favor of the Olympians. If only you could have seen, over the course of two days, these politicians and filthy rich entrepreneurs all united for a moment, socialist and UMP, British Labour and Tory, bowing and scraping. And to have heard the barons of Olympianism swearing to each IOC member how particularly precious their own cities are.

[Full Article]

By Sylvain Cypel

--Translated By Ramsi Woodcock

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