Jeux olympiques : une flamme géopolitique | Le Dessous des Cartes | ARTE

It's great to be back for this new edition of "Under the Cards."

Today, we start by admiring, from the sky, a famous French river that has inspired many poets, from Guillaume Apollinaire to Jacques Prévert. It's the river that flows through Paris, of course. There's an ambition for the 2024 Games: to make it the site of the Olympic and Paralympic rowing events. But also, to make it the backdrop for the opening ceremony, with a parade of delegations on boats for a six-kilometer cruise from east to west.

The Olympic Games are always an opportunity for countries to showcase who they are, to display their values, their power, their soft power, to present themselves to the world and welcome the world in return.

This gives us the opportunity to present you with a brief geopolitical history of the Olympic Games.

Let's play our cards right.

With the Olympics, Paris aims to showcase a unique setting, a platform to promote French excellence through a picture-perfect backdrop that will be admired by 4.5 billion viewers.

Thus, the Grand Palais will host fencing and taekwondo, the Champ de Mars will host beach volleyball, the Esplanade des Invalides will host archery, and the park at the Palace of Versailles will host equestrian events.

As for the opening ceremony, as we've mentioned, it's supposed to take place on the Seine.

A boon for Paris, the world's top tourist destination, but not just for Paris.

France also faces the challenge of offering a new Olympic spirit, as hosting such an event is often criticized for its cost and environmental impact.

With an estimated budget of less than nine billion euros, the competition aims to be the cheapest in decades.

Ninety-five percent of the infrastructure is already in place, a major advantage, as France aims to make these Games a true climate laboratory in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement.

For example, in Seine-Saint-Denis, three major new constructions are concentrated: the aquatic center, the Olympic Village, which will be transformed into an eco-district, and the media center located between Duny and Le Bourget.

The organizers opted for a simple approach, hoping to bring about lasting change in this department, one of the most disadvantaged in France.

The stated goal of these games is to stay under 1.5 million tons of CO2, representing a carbon footprint that's half that of the London Olympics, which emitted 3.4 million tons of CO2.

A green wave tarnished by some decisions, like choosing the site of Tehupo in Tahiti to host the surfing events.

A site located 10,000 miles by air from Paris, whose development is feared by environmental groups to damage coral reefs.

These Olympics will also be a huge challenge for France's image, as the country will have to manage an unprecedented terrorist threat and cybersecurity risks. Let's see why.

With two major conflicts ongoing, in Ukraine and the Middle East, geopolitical tensions are extremely high.

The mere presence of delegations from the countries involved is a diplomatic headache.

As for the security of the Olympic Games, thirty thousand law enforcement officers and twenty-two thousand private security guards will be deployed in the capital.

The safety of Israeli athletes is a major concern for French security services, as the Munich tragedy of 1972 remains etched in everyone's minds.

Eleven members of the Israeli delegation were killed by a Palestinian commando at the time, serving as a stark reminder that this major sporting event is not always a haven of peace.

In reality, games have always had political aims and have always served the influence strategies of states over time.

Let's see.

The Games, first and foremost, are a way for nations to exist on the international stage, as the CIO (International Olympic Committee) recognizes more nations than the UN. (The phrase "les j o" is a common French abbreviation for "les Jeux olympiques" (the Olympic Games)).

Two hundred and six nations belong to the Olympic Committee, compared to only one hundred and ninety-three states that are members of the UN.

Notable examples include Kosovo, Taiwan, and Palestine, which participated in the Atlanta Olympics for the first time in 1996.

For a long time, the Olympics were dominated by Western countries, who used this competition to assert their power.

Therefore, no African city has ever hosted the Olympics. Only one South American megacity, Rio, did so in 2016.

Now, in a more globalized world, new states are also looking to use the event as a way to exert influence, regardless of whether their model is democratic or authoritarian.

This is the case with China in 2008 for the Summer Olympics and in 2022 for the Winter Olympics, we'll come back to that later.

Sporting competitions also provide a platform for geopolitical rivalries to play out in a different arena.

So, during the Cold War, the competition played out on a different field.

So, during the Cold War, the United States and the USSR clashed in all areas, including the race for Olympic medals.

In their second Olympic Games appearance in 1956 in Melbourne, the Soviets surpassed the Americans with 37 gold medals for the USSR, compared to 32 for the United States.

It's fair to say that the Soviets created a system that churned out champions, directly controlled by the communist regime.

Both Germanys engaged in the same competition.

In this clash between two sides, the most drastic weapon was the boycott.

In 1980, during the Moscow Olympics, the United States and about 60 other countries boycotted the games in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Four years later, in retaliation, the USSR boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics along with fourteen other countries.

It's clear that the Olympic Games are a remarkable platform for countries to showcase their power, even if it means intensifying certain rivalries.

However, at its core, the Olympic movement promotes peace and friendship among people, and that's what we're about to see.

As early as the 8th century BC, the prestigious Panhellenic Games emerged in ancient Greece.

They are held every four years at the summer solstice in Olympia, Delphi, or Corinth.

The best male athletes come from all the cities, and already the competition is igniting rivalries between the Spartans and the Athenians.

This is what they call the Olympic truce.

This philosophy was revived centuries later in 1896 by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Olympic Games in Athens.

He believes that the event, which brings together young men from the ruling class, could help to pacify international relations.

However, this ideal of peace would be shattered by the rise of nationalism, culminating in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Despite calls for a boycott from several countries, forty-nine national delegations participated in the largest Nazi propaganda event organized by the Third Reich.

This is the image of a new, strong, and united Germany that Adolf Hitler wants to showcase.

During the two weeks of trials, the regime uses the games (referring to the Olympic Games) to hide its true face: antisemitism and the rise of militarism in the country.

The goal was to promote the myth of Aryan superiority, portraying Germans as the heirs to a fantastical antiquity, represented by images of blond, heroic athletes.

Germany emerged victorious from the competition, taking home eighty-nine medals.

So today, it's another autocracy that wants to use the Games to promote its model on the world stage, China, and that's what we're going to see now.

In 2008, Beijing hosted its first Olympic Games.

The staging is magnificent, the stadium, the famous Bird's Nest, is monumental.

The massive budget, around forty billion euros.

China's modernization and economic growth are fascinating.

However, fourteen years later, at the Winter Olympics, the long-awaited democratization didn't happen.

Xi Jinping's regime has only strengthened its authoritarian nature.

Several Western powers, including the United States, boycotted the opening ceremony to protest the violent crackdown on Uyghur people in Xinjiang.

On this occasion, Xi Jinping is showcasing his friendship with Vladimir Putin.

The two men aim to challenge Washington.

Just four days after these Olympics ended, on February 24, 2022, Putin launched his full-scale military offensive against Ukraine.

Autocratic regimes are particularly fond of using this major sporting event to advance their own interests on the world stage.

That's what we're going to find out now.

In 2014, with the Sochi Olympics, Putin aimed to embody the rising power of Russia.

The choice of this city is far from insignificant. (Alternatively, "The choice of this city is far from random." or "The choice of this city is very deliberate.")

It cost thirty-seven billion euros to transform the seaside town into a ski resort, but its location is strategic.

Indeed, the Russian city is located on the Black Sea in the Caucasus, near two countries that emerged from the former USSR, Ukraine and Georgia, which are considered too close to the West by the Russian government.

The Olympic Games allow Vladimir Putin to bolster his influence and appeal in the region.

And on February 27, 2014, just as he would do in February 2022, Putin launched a war against Ukraine as soon as the Olympic Games ended.

The first step: Crimea.

Here's a brief geopolitical history of the Olympic Games in the context of the Paris 2024 Games, which, as we know, are taking place amidst multiple international crises, particularly Russia's aggression in Ukraine and beyond. Russian athletes will not be allowed to compete under the Russian flag, prompting Vladimir Putin to organize alternative games.

The Friendship Games, as they're called, are scheduled to take place in Moscow and Yekaterinburg in September 2024.

The International Olympic Committee has warned athletes who might want to participate.

Games are essentially just geopolitics playing out on a different field.

For further reading, check out these two books by Lucas Aubain and Jean-Baptiste Guéguan: "The War of Sport: A New Geopolitics" (published by Tallandier).

And we worked with him, in particular, to put together this program: Pascal Gillon, with Jean-Pierre Augustin, has published "The Games of the World" with Dunod.

And that concludes this new episode of "Under the Cards." Don't forget to visit Arte.tv and our social media pages to watch all our videos.

See you soon.