The Olympic flame rose over Paris Friday night in a floating cauldron lit by French athletes Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner at the height of the Opening Ceremony. Canadian music icon Céline Dion brought down the curtain by giving her first public performance in four years, singing Edith Piaf’s “Hymne à l’Amour” from the Eiffel Tower. Worsening rain did little to dampen the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the banks of the River Seine as a floating parade carried nearly 7,000 athletes throughout the night. Read our liveblog to see how the Opening Ceremony unfolded.
Highlights:
- The Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics started at 7:30pm with a floating parade carrying nearly 7,000 athletes from around the world up the River Seine past the French capital’s most famous landmarks. The ceremony lasted about three hours and 45 minutes.
- The show was attended by more than 80 heads of state and government and more than 300,000 spectators watched from the river’s banks, organisers said.
- Security officials say as many as 45,000 police and thousands of soldiers and private security guards have been tasked with securing the ceremony and sporting events that will be spread across Paris.
- Lady Gaga performed an iconic French cabaret classic as the ceremony opened Friday, and Franco-Malian singer Aya Nakamura sang her hit song “Djadja”.
🗼 Céline Dion sings Edith Piaf from atop the Eiffel Tower
Canadian singer Céline Dion heralded the lighting of the Olympic cauldron with Edith Piaf’s “Hymne à l’amour”, sung from atop Paris’s unmistakeable Eiffel Tower.
🔥 The Olympic cauldron is lit by Marie Josée Pérec and Tony Riner
Kindled at last, the Olympic cauldron rose over Paris in a hot air balloon recalling the earliest designs of France’s Montgolfier brothers.
The Olympic cauldron was lit in the Tuileries Gardens by French athletes Marie Josée Pérec and Tony Riner after having been passed to them by a wheelchair-bound Charles Coste, the oldest living French Olympian. Coste, who is 100 years old, competed in the 1948 London Games.
🏀 NBA legend Tony Parker takes up the torch at Paris’s famous Louvre museum
Amélie Mauresmo ran past cheering crowds to Paris’s Louvre museum, where she met NBA legend Tony Parker.
The pair took off at a jog through the lightening rain to meet Paralympic athletes Nantenin Keita, Marie-Amélie Le Fur and Alexis Hanquinquant in front of the museum’s magnificent glass Pyramide.
🔥 Olympic Torch Relay nears its end as sporting legends cruise along the Seine
Olympic legends Carl Lewis, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Nadia Comaneci held the Olympic torch aloft as they raced across the Seine in a speedboat before handing it to tennis great Amélie Mauresmo. The Torch Relay is nearing its end.
🥇 French President Emmanuel Macron declares 2024 Olympic Games open
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday officially declared open the Paris Olympics, at the end of a spectacular but rain-soaked opening ceremony held for the first time outside the main stadium.
“I declare open the Games of Paris celebrating the 33rd Olympiad of the modern era,” said Macron, launching the Games exactly 100 years after Paris last hosted the Olympics.
In a gaffe shortly beforehand, the five-ring Olympic flag was raised upside down at the Trocadero across from the Eiffel Tower.
🌹 Algerian athletes commemorate the 1961 deaths of their pro-independence compatriots
Algeria reminded France of a dark chapter of its colonial past during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
Algerian athletes brought red roses on their boat as they paraded for the event, and then tossed them into the river to honour victims of an infamous 1961 police crackdown on Algerian protesters in Paris. Historians say some 120 protesters died and 12,000 were arrested as they demonstrated in support of independence from France, then Algeria’s colonial ruler. Some were thrown in the Seine River.
Algeria won its independence in 1962 after a long war
🏳 The Olympic flag is raised as the Radio France choir sings the Games’ anthem
🐎 As Paris grows dark, a steel knight rides along the Seine
Launching the “Solidarity” stage of the Opening Ceremony, a hooded rider rides an animatronic horse along the length of the Seine, the Olympic flag around their neck trailing in their wake.
The rider’s water-borne course is interspersed with back-and-white photographs and colour footage showing some of the Olympic Games’ most unforgettable moments across the decades, including the iconic feats of Black US athlete Jesse Owens.
As the world’s flagbearers march in front of the Eiffel Tower, the steel horse is replaced by a flesh-and-blood steed, and the masked rider walks steadily at the head of the parade, flanked by France’s Republican Guard.
🕺 The final countdown: Eurodance number defies the worsening rain
Pounding Eurodance beats accompanied a frenzied dance number in front of Paris’s Eiffel Tower, celebrating the diversity that has been on display throughout the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Games.
A floating dancefloor carried the revellers across the river, the worsening rain doing nothing to dampen the mood as a medley of European electro-pop shook the city.
🚢 Team France makes their entrance
👩🎤 French fashion takes centre stage
🏰 La Marseillaise echoes from Paris’s Grand Palais
France’s national anthem echoed from the rooftop of Paris’s Grand Palais as a gentle rain fell across the assembled spectators.
La Marseillaise, a marching song dating back to the days of the French Revolution, was sung by French mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel.
As the last strains of the anthem lingered in the air, statues of historical Frenchwomen emerged from the Seine, including anarchist and Communarde Louise Michel, writer and philosopher SImone de Beauvoir and politicians and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil.
🎆 French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura astounds at Olympic Opening Ceremony
Franco-Malian superstar Aya Nakamura, the most listened to French-speaking singer in the world, performed at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday, defying criticism from far-right activists.
Far-right politicians and conservatives had accused the 29-year-old singer, best known for her hit “Djadja”, of “vulgarity” and disrespecting the French language in her lyrics.
🩸 A revolutionary anthem with a heavy-metal edge
It’s not clear how many spectators were expecting to watch the decapitated figure of French Queen Marie Antoinette holding her severed head and singing the revolutionary anthem “Ah, ça ira” in front of Paris’s Conciergerie tonight.
Even fewer likely anticipated a pounding rendition of the anthem performed by French heavy metal group Gojira alongside opera singer Marina Viotti, on the site where so many people were once walked to the guillotine during the French Revolution!
👀 Masked figure carries the Olympic Torch over the roofs of Paris
As the Olympic teams made their way down the River Seine, a mysterious figure, hooded and masked, was tracing their own path across the staggered roofs of Paris.
An homage to gentleman thief Arsène Lupin? Popular video game franchise Assassin’s Creed? The French sport of parkour, or free running? All will be made clear in time.
💃 Eighty Moulin Rouge dancers perform the can-can on the banks of the Seine
🎵 Lady Gaga performs cabaret classic at Paris Opening Ceremony
Lady Gaga performed an iconic French cabaret classic in French at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Friday, backed up by dancers shaking pink plumed pom-poms.
The appearance of the US pop star – real name Stefani Germanotta – was kept under tight wraps by organisers, but rumours that she might perform spread after she was spotted in the French capital.
