Well, for more on the second Tuesday of the games,
let's cross to France 24 is
James Andre and a sunny Paris France.
How's it going, James?
Well, as you say, it's sunny and it's actually interesting.
I'm here at the Club France because,
you know, this place always had some people here.
It was, you know, there were people,
but not that many. And then this weekend,
last weekend, things actually exploded.
You can tell that the
Olympic manias actually seized Paris.
So you can see the line behind me.
You see all these people are queuing to get into
this Club France.
And you know why? Because you can't buy tickets online
anymore because so many were sold that indeed,
the organizer cannot guarantee your entrance.
And the line goes on and it goes on and
it goes on and it goes on.
So what we have here is indeed something quite new,
which is really people vying to get in.
I've been speaking to them.
They're telling me, you know,
they're hoping to share the excitement,
meet the athletes and they really want
to visit this club France,
which is the true it's I mean,
it's a great place inside anyway.
It's true that we've been reading in the press basically
this week that while the French are starting to feel
their Olympics are an actual success after having complained so
much before with all the main newspaper,
Le Mond saying France is having holidays from itself.
Well, for example, Le Parisiana,
the big newspaper who's been asking visitors what they thought
and visitors giving an average mark of eight out of
10 to their experience in Paris.
So I've myself earlier on went on and spoke to
people on the streets in the Champs Elysees.
This is what they had to say,
right? Beam me, Scotty.
Well, here in the French press we read everything that
these Olympics would be a catastrophe,
that it would be impossible to move and that there
would be too many people.
Parisians have fled. Well, I've been speaking to people here
on the shows,
Elysees, and they're rather happy with their Olympic Games.
It's been a fantastic atmosphere to come into.
Everyone's really friendly. There's lots of volunteers around who are
giving up their time to help tourists and help people
like us who haven't got a clue where we're going.
Oh, I'm loving it. I
mean it's it's a bucket list dream for me to
come to the Olympics.
Unfortunately I was unable to go when it was on
our own doorstep in London
in 2012. So I was really,
really pleased when I could get tickets and come.
It's great. I'm living it like a party.
It's really out of the ordinary.
It's a chance to be here.
The atmosphere isn't stressed at all.
On the contrary, above all,
you feel an immense joy around this exchange of cultures.
There aren't many Parisians here,
so it's nice. No, in fact,
everyone's in the Olympic spirit,
in the spirit of the Games,
in the spirit of celebration.
So I think people are really enjoying it.
The opening ceremony with all the shows,
the fact that people are really enjoying being here and
that the French athletes are bringing back a lot of
medals too.
I think life has changed.
Well, with sports arenas such as the Place de la
Concorde,
but also the
Eiffel Tower, the Versailles Castle,
the few Americans I've come across here rather worried that
it will be difficult to better this in four years
time.
Oh, I think it'll be tough,
but I think we're up for the challenge.
Something that surprised us is that there's no alcohol for
sale in the venues.
LA will do that very differently,
I think. What is LA?
I mean, LA has the sun.
I mean, I don't know.
LA has a couple of football stadiums.
And. Yeah.
Yeah, you guys, you guys have the perfect venues.
These days. The French press is running article upon article
about these Parisians that fled the capital and now feel
they're missing out.
Those who've traveled here on purpose,
though, appear to be having a very good time.