Paris 2024 bid given spectacular Bastille Day send-off

French President François Hollande used a Bastille Day address to urge France to back Paris' bid to host the 2024 Olympics ©President of the French Republic

French President François Hollande today called on the country’s top athletes to act as ambassadors for Paris 2024, as the French capital used the nation’s traditional Bastille Day celebrations to act as a spectacular send-off for its latest Olympic and Paralympic bid.

At a reception at the Elysée Palace ahead of the National Day fireworks that invariably showcase the Eiffel Tower, the city’s best-known landmark, to brilliant effect, Hollande told around 80 athletes and bid leaders that Paris “is not a candidate for ourselves”, but “for the world”.

He continued: “We are not candidates solely to have the Games, but to share the Games.

“That changes everything.

“France is not there to obtain, to win.

“She is there to permit the organisation of the Games, in Paris, to be a success for the planet.”

Image title — French President François Hollande joined Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Paris 2024 chairman Bernard Lapasset to give the capital's Olympic campaign a Bastille Day boost ©President of the French Republic

Addressing invitees who included Paris 2024 chairman Bernard Lapasset and the city’s Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Hollande sought to explain the apparent reluctance of the country’s political classes to commit to another bid in the wake of the bitter disappointment of the 2012 race, saying:

“The city of Paris - Anne Hidalgo - did not want to commit herself lightly.

“She wanted to know if the conditions were right, if the State was willing to support the candidacy, if the Ȋle de France region was also engaged, and if, above all, there was a collective spirit: was this candidacy something that was wished for?

“Not so as to be sure of winning - you know better than me that one is never sure of winning - but to know if we had a good chance of carrying the day.

“And then, to know if we were motivated, because nothing is worse than those who enter competitions without the necessary ardour.

“Such people are generally bound to lose.”

Paris bid unsuccessfully in 1992 and 2008, as well as 2012.

The winner is set to be chosen by IOC members in 2017, at the body’s 130th Session in the Peruvian capital of Lima.

The French capital’s rivals at present are Boston, Budapest, Hamburg and Rome.