This is Paris’ mayor Anne Hidalgo at the closing ceremony. She was the one who started Paris’ campaign 9 years ago, after the worst terrorist attacks the city had ever known she became one of the most passionate (if not only) advocates for the games in the city.
If you’re not French, chances are you do not know her. She is pretty hated within the French population, mostly for her anti-car politics. Her opponents have always said she was “destroying” Paris. It was one of France’s most popular top tweets " #saccageparis". Even though she’s been re-elected, she’s been called every name in the books, lunatic, crazy (dingo) and so on and so forth, and everyone was betting on her to fail. Honestly ? Myself included.
When I turned on the Games, I was expecting to see her gloating everywhere, from the opening to the closing. Tweeting about the games, Léon Marchand’s victory and so on. Turns out the closing was the first time I did saw her. She remained very discreet the whole 2 weeks, not going to pose with the French champions or drying their tears like other French politicians did.
Now let’s be clear, the lady has flaws, but her and her administration’s ambition’s for these games in the face of constant public opposition ended up proving me wrong. This is a huge victory for Paris. Congrats, mrs Mayor !
She took vacations to Tahiti with the money of the French people, officially to see the beaches for the surfing Olympic event, she stayed 2 weeks in luxurious hotels for more than $60k and lied about it. During Olympics, she nagged at Frenchs and people who didn’t liked the opening ceremony. calling us “hard to come” (“peine à jouir”, a French insult that I don’t know how to translate it well to you), and also that we are “people who gna gna gni gna gna gna” (her own official words).
She did lots of other things, I am not gonna tell everything here, not worth it, and not enough space in reply to tell all.
I don’t owe her any apologies, however, she owe us some.
I know my reply gonna be ban. But I am glad I did it.