I wasn’t really supporting Paris’ candidacy but I was struck to see how important getting the Games was for the people around me. I followed the final “episode” of this bad story on TV in a Parisian “bistrot” with some of my co-workers and everybody was disappointed.

The mayor’s office, the media and the population (in this order I presume) were thinking that the Games would help to boost France’s economy, image and morale. I was really thinking it was doubtful and I hope that this will help my fellow citizen focus on the real matters. What we need is not the Games (Good luck to London with that). What we need is changing the French/European system.

Tackling the debt and government deficit issue (less civil servants, healthcare, dubious spendings)? Facing the unemployment question while international competition has never been so strong and economic prospect are not that good (oil prices, euro/dollar exchange rates rise and fall)? Sure, that’s not as sexy as getting the Games in Paris. But it’s far more difficult and will require real sacrifices. We can argue over politics’ roles (the mayor’s fault, the president’s fault, etc.) and I think they are to blame for spending public money to show off all over the globe (an issue nobody really discusses). But better than that, France should try to address – for once – the real issues.

Of course, I am not popular with my fellow citizens when I express this kind of point of view. My co-workers even nicknamed me “rosbif” after the bid results (“roast beef”, our equivalent for “British” to the “Frog” they use for us). But I don’t want to stay in France as it is (becoming not less or more than a touristy destination), one reason I chose to study in London and I’m willing to work in the UK or the US after that. And to be true, I do have a “London 2012” sticker on a folder I always have in my bag. Some trophy from a London Business School party… :)

Note: this was posted before the first news of the sad events in London and my thoughts are of course going to all my friends there and to the Londoners.