The most obvious thing Paris has to get right this year is the Olympics. If the immense hurdles of security, logistics, crammed metros and overpriced AirBnB rentals can be cleared, the opening ceremony will be a gold-medal spectacle of Frenchness as boatloads of athletes on the River Seine sail past Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower to the sound of rousing tunes and the dazzle of colored lights.

The games will keep tourists flocking to the world’s top city destination, as ranked by Euromonitor International, even as Parisians themselves dream of escaping the crowds. But the harder, more vital soft-power challenge is delivering on the capital’s post-Brexit promise of becoming continental Europe’s top financial, tech and research hub in a time of heightened geopolitical conflict, threats to world trade and looming Trumpian chaos in the US. Or, as President Emmanuel Macron put it in his New Year’s speech, to “rearm” the state economically, industrially and technologically.

QOSHE - Peak Paris? Macron’s 2024 Soft-Power Challenge - Lionel Laurent
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Peak Paris? Macron’s 2024 Soft-Power Challenge

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04.01.2024

The most obvious thing Paris has to get right this year is the Olympics. If the immense hurdles of security, logistics, crammed metros and overpriced AirBnB rentals can be cleared, the opening ceremony will be a gold-medal spectacle of........

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