No cross on the Invalides, no French flag… Why the Olympic poster is controversial


Gauthier Delomez with Mayalène Trémolet / Photo credits: THIERRY CHESNOT / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / Getty Images via AFP
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6:00 p.m., March 5, 2024

A “surreal” and “abundant” poster in the form of a diptych: here is the concept of the work designed by the artist Ugo Gattoni which will represent the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This large drawing is made up of a giant arena where numerous Parisian monuments and sports venues intertwine. The poster was unveiled to the press on Monday evening, and despite the 2,000 hours of work necessary to create it, the result does not seem to convince many observers.

The (very) noted absence of the cross on the Invalides

In this diptych reside “forgettings” which call out, like the cross on the dome of the Invalides. In the show Pascal Praud and you Tuesday, Jean-Pierre, a listener, does not understand this omission. “We are in a Christian country. It is a scandal to deny our history when we know what this dome and the Invalides represent, all these men who fought for our country,” criticizes this listener from Europe 1.

An opinion shared by Laure Lavalette, spokesperson for the National Rally. The MP for Var denounces at the microphone of Europe 1 an attempt to erase French culture: “This erasure of the cross is indicative of the erasure of our history, (…) and an anthropological erasure”.

In the same sense, like many members of the Republicans, senator Stéphane Le Rudulier criticizes a sanitized poster, and points out the absence of references to the Napoleonic wars on the Arc de Triomphe, present at the top right of the work . “The Olympic Games are a fantastic showcase for asserting one’s culture, one’s identity, and I have the impression that we are doing the complete opposite,” the Bouches-du-Rhône elected official says indignantly. of Europe 1.

No French flag, unlike the 1924 poster

Another major “omission” caused a lot of reaction this Tuesday: that of the French flag, untraceable, whereas in 1924, during the last Summer Games in France, it appeared on the official poster behind shirtless men. An absence noticed by Pascal Praud in the morning of Europe 1, and which many political leaders have denounced. Jordan Bardella, president of the RN and head of his party’s list for the June European elections, notably castigated “the contempt for our tricolor flag”.

And if other places which will host Olympic events, like Marseille or Tahiti, have been represented, the city of Lille seems strangely absent as noted The voice of the North.

A style that does not delight all observers

More generally, the drawing presented this Monday by the organizers of the Paris Games is criticized for its somewhat confusing style, which takes up the concept of the drawings Where is Charlie ?. This is the opinion of Yann, listener of the show Pascal Praud and you : “I thought it was a promotional poster for Eurodisney in Dubai, then I said to myself ‘no, it’s a promotional poster for ‘Welcome to the World Care Bears in Paris’. And then, I said to myself ‘No, it’s ‘Intervilles’! It’s absolutely disastrous.”

Senator Stéphane Le Rudulier believes that “this poster looks much more like a bad multi-colored manga than a poster worthy of the Olympic Games”, while sports journalist Dominique Grimault regrets, still on Europe 1, having contemplated “a drawing for children , a kind of fantasized Babylon”.

In summary, the work of Ugo Gattoni is far from unanimous. As for the political world, however, if the three rights (RN, LR and Reconquest) have united in the same indignation, the left or the presidential majority find, for the moment, nothing to complain about.





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