From the Cheval Blanc hotel, which opened in 2021 as part of the La Samaritaine department store, the view over the whole of Paris is charming, even when it's pouring. In a trunk-shaped Louis Vuitton pavilion built in July on the 10th floor of this Art Deco building, Bernard Arnault, CEO of the LVMH group, watched the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Friday, July 26. Around a hundred guests were invited by France's richest man, whose group is the premium partner of the Olympics.
Down below, the tightrope walker Nathan Paulin took to the slackline mounted above Pont-Neuf and anchored to the department store's façade. The scene was watched live on television by a record 1.1 billion people.
The show, designed by Thomas Jolly and Thierry Reboul, the two directors chosen by the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP), also featured American megastar Lady Gaga, singers Juliette Armanet and Aya Nakamura, mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel, and Céline Dion.
All the performers wore outfits from Dior, LVMH's second-largest brand in terms of sales. COJOP ensured that this was noted by providing television commentators, a few hours before the start of the ceremony, with a "Media Guide" detailing "the five prodigious tableaux enhanced by Dior creations." Within the first half-hour of the ceremony, broadcast worldwide, a video segment was also dedicated to the Louis Vuitton workshops.
How did Arnault's group manage to infiltrate this blockbuster? It all began on September 13, 2017, in Lima, Peru. On that day, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to award Paris the 2024 Games, a bid backed by LVMH. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wept with joy, and beside her, Tony Estanguet, three-time Olympic canoeing champion, took over the presidency of COJOP. Funding Paris 2024 fast became a major issue.
COJOP needed to secure €3.8 billion to finalize the budget (later revised to €4.4 billion by the end of 2022). Sponsors were expected to contribute €1.1 billion. However, in 2019, alongside the first sponsors such as Française des Jeux, EDF and the bank BPCE, a major sponsor, willing to contribute around €100 million, was still missing. Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, was approached.
But Hidalgo opposed the idea. In March 2019, she wrote to Estanguet, asking that sponsors align themselves with the commitment to organize environmentally friendly Games. The controversy lasted two months. In June, the fossil fuel giant withdrew. "We won't spend €100 million just to take hits," said Pouyanné in an interview with Le Monde in 2022.
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