Can Paris Handle the Olympics?

They are only weeks away, but the City of Light is still a construction site.

Greetings from Paris, where I’ve come to see old friends and check on preparations for next month’s XXXIII Olympiad. Right now, it doesn’t look as if the city will be ready.

Some of the 35 venues for the 329 competitions remain unfinished. Same for many of the 7,000 or so roadway and other Olympics-related infrastructure projects. Parisians I’ve talked to are worried about the traffic disruptions, the expected crowds and the possibility that some residents may not have access to their own homes.

That last wrinkle has to do with security, a particular concern at these Games. An Islamic State media outlet has threatened terrorist attacks. An IS-linked gang has been blamed for killing a German tourist and wounding three others at the Eiffel Tower a few months ago.

Accordingly, the government has mobilized 40,000 police and 40,000 soldiers to patrol the city until the Olympics and subsequent Paralympics are over in September. Parisians living within a few hundred yards of a venue will need to show a QR code on their mobile phones to come and go. No exceptions.

Disruptions have already begun. Every year, my wife and I attend a fundraising gala for Paris’ American Library at a stately 18^th century pile on the central Place de la Concorde, where several Olympic events will take place. The gala is still on, but many of the roads and Metro stations around it are closed for construction work. We’re not quite sure how we’ll get there. 

Nothing in Paris is easy these days. The leftist mayor has for years been pedestrianizing streets, adding bicycle lanes, obliterating parking spaces and otherwise making the city more walkable — and more difficult for cars, taxis and buses.

That’s fine if you don’t have far to go. Alas, some Olympic events are miles from the city center. Farther still are competitions in eight other parts of the country, as well as the French territory of Tahiti.

So far, such worries have not scared away tourists. Some are here for the Olympiad, but most have no doubt come to see Paris and get the heck out before the real crowds arrive. Restaurants and museums are currently teeming with visitors.

The apartment my wife and I like to rent costs 25% more this year, which our elegant landlady says is a far gentler increase than the ones hotels have imposed. Like many Parisians, she will soon leave town for her country house until the coast is clear. A survey by the French polling firm Ifop found that 40% of French adults are indifferent to the Games and another 37% are openly hostile.

I should have expected all this. Ordinary French may be doubtful, but sponsors and restaurateurs are ecstatic. Political leaders, embodying the French fondness for spectacle and finesse, are determined to make these Olympics unforgettable. Government spending on them may top $8 billion. That’s hardly a record — the 2000 Tokyo Games cost vastly more — but it’s still a sensitive subject in a country with perpetual budgetary problems.

A desire to impress may also explain the over-the-top opening ceremony, set for July 26. It will feature nearly 11,000 athletes and officials on 160 boats floating down the river Seine through the center of town and past 300,000 mostly seated spectators. Some competitions are set to take place in the river, which has been famously polluted for centuries but lately declared safe for swimmers. We’ll see.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m delighted that the town I called home for a decade has won the right to stage this iteration of the millennia-old Olympic tradition, and I admire France’s plan for it. The Paris version is so thrillingly ambitious, so downright crazy that it just might work.

Indeed, these Games will be the first to offer cash prizes to track-and-field medalists, the first to require an equal number of male and female competitors, and the first to feature break-dancing as an Olympic sport. Thus, new records have already been set.

I’m sorry I’ll be gone from Paris even before the opening ceremony. Friends who have been to previous Games say the experience can be the thrill of a lifetime, even if a few things go wrong.

I’ll just have to wait a bit longer for that pleasure. The next Olympics are set for Los Angeles in 2028. Plenty of time to work on my break-dancing.