Paris
ABOUT 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, I decided to take my own Olympics poll. This would be personal and unscientific. My sample population: two middle-aged women, a middle-aged man and three female students in the Luxembourg Garden.
Earlier in the day, I sat in the office of Jean-François Lamour, France's minister of youth and sports and a former Olympic gold medalist in fencing. I wanted to know why he thought Paris was prepared to be host for the 2012 Summer Games after two failed attempts. Paris lost the 1992 Games to Barcelona and the 2008 Games to Beijing.
From the outside, Paris, with a solid, unified front, appears to be the front-runner in this race against New York, Moscow, London and Madrid. The boulevards here are lined with 2012 Olympics banners, and the airports and the train station sing the gospel of the 2012 Games with signs and artwork. There is evidence of a city that is truly eager to be host for the Olympics. Even at Roland Garros, site of the French Open, center court is surrounded with "Paris 2012" banners.
Several players competing in the French Open even agreed to tap their chest twice after matches to signify the slogan, "My heart beats for Paris 2012." Two were from rival bid countries - James Blake of the United States and Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia.
But what about the people of Paris? New York has a similar corporate and governmental push behind its Olympic bid, but what has bothered me is a man-on-the-street ambivalence over the city's effort to be host of the Games.
Are the people here behind the Paris bid?
"Of course," Lamour said. "The polls show that 85 percent of the French population supports our bid - the French and Parisians are behind the bid."
What about the other 15 percent? Five percent don't like anything, Lamour said. "We need that 10 percent. We have to find a way to show them that the Olympics are good for Paris and good for France."
On Sunday, French voters will participate in a referendum on whether to ratify a new European constitution. Polls indicate that they will reject the constitutional treaty, and Lamour said yesterday that the result would have no bearing on Paris's Olympics bid. "A negative vote will not have any impact on our ability to organize the Games," he said.
Opposition in France to the charter for the European Union seems based, to a large extent, on the fear of or the resistance to an expansion of Europe, and a potential loss of jobs. Such an opening up is precisely what the Olympic Games are: an opening up to the world. If a country is afraid to open up, how can it hold the Olympics?
"It's a paradox," Lamour said. "We want the Games, but we say no to Europe."
I left Lamour's office with an interpreter and headed toward the Luxembourg Garden in the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne. As I approached my six poll participants, the subject was Paris's 2012 Olympics bid, and the question was simple: Do you want the Games in Paris?
Josianne Plessis and Paulette Boissonnette said they were in favor. Yes, Plessis said, the traffic would be a nightmare, but the new people, the visitors, would be worth the headaches. "Different nationalities, young people, that will be good," she said. What about the crush of humanity, all the crazy people who would descend on Paris? What about that burden?
"On the contrary," she said. "That would be very good." The only downside, she said, shifting into English, "maybe we will pay more taxes."
Farther along in the garden, three female students from the Sorbonne sat and talked, enjoying a marvelous afternoon in the sun. They expressed the same theme of openness. Hakima Abchiche called the Games a good thing and a way to bring different nationalities to Paris.
Each of the six Parisians I polled referred to the 1998 World Cup, held in France, as the basis of their support for the Olympics. France won the World Cup that year, and Paris was on a high that lasted for months. "Everybody was in the streets," Abchiche said. "That was real nice."
A little farther along, I came across a gathering of chess players who, in my experience, tend to be contrarians, so I expected that they would object to the Paris bid. But one competitor, Gerard Schindler, said he was all for the Games in Paris. He, too, referred to the 1998 World Cup for the power and joy a great sporting event could bring to one's hometown. "All of Paris was celebrating," he said.
Paris, Schindler added, needed another celebration.
"In France, people are not always happy," he said." Maybe the Games can boost our spirits and our solidarity."
Schindler said that after the World Cup, people seemed to draw closer together, and there was a bit more congeniality among strangers.
Many New Yorkers expressed the same feeling after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, tore our city apart. The concept of the Olympics as a healing force: I like it.