Sports Diplomacy

France will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They will be held from 26 July to 11 August and 28 August to 8 September 2024 respectively. The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs is closely involved in these two major sporting events.

An (almost) unprecedented festival of sport in France

In 2024, France will host the summer Olympic Games for the first time in a century, and the Paralympic Games for the first time in its history. It will host 15,000 athletes, over 9,000 accredited journalists, and almost 1.5 million spectators from all over the world. The event will attract massive foreign audiences, with 4 billion TV viewers expected.

The Games will stand out for events held at the most iconic and spectacular locations in Paris and the Ile de France region (Champs de Mars, Grand Palais, Invalides, Place de la Concorde, Versailles etc.). Beyond the capital, which will showcase its most magnificent monuments for the occasion, all of France will be taking part. For example, the football tournament will take place in 8 cities (Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Nice and Marseille), while there will be sailing in Marseille and surfing in Tahiti.

The Olympic Games will feature 28 Olympic sports, as well as 4 additional sports: sport climbing, skateboarding, surfing and breaking. The Paralympic athletes, meanwhile, will compete in 22 sporting disciplines.

These Games will be a unique celebration of sports and Olympism, open to as many people as possible. The Olympic Games Opening Ceremony on 26 July 2024 will for the first time not be held in a stadium and the delegations will proceed through the heart of Paris, on the Seine. The Opening Ceremony for the Paralympic Games will partly take place on the Champs-Élysées and Place de la Concorde.

Unique diplomatic network action for the Games

The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a unique opportunity to promote France, its territories and its values. That is why since the candidacy for Paris 2024, French diplomacy has fully supported this project.

For several months, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs has been mobilized to hold this major sporting event:

The MEAE plays a major consular role in order to facilitate the issuance of visas for the tens of thousands of members of the Olympic and Paralympic families,
In the protocol sector, it will play host to many Heads of State and Government who will travel to France for the Games. Over 100 such dignitaries are expected to attend the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony on 26 July 2024.
146 embassies have already joined the “Terre de Jeux 2024” programme, illustrating the enthusiasm and ambition of the diplomatic network for contributing to the success of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and sharing the project with the 2.5 million French people living abroad. Some 136 of them – more than 80% of the French diplomatic network – organized a great“Relay Around the World” on 14 March 2024: 24 hours of uninterrupted sport across the whole world! Just weeks before the Games begin, this event highlighted the efforts of the French diplomatic network and its determination to continue making sport central to our external action.

Sustainability and restraint at the heart of the Games

The Paris 2024 Organizing Committee has made several strong environmental and social commitments, including:

aiming for carbon neutrality at the Games, with the goal of halving their carbon footprint compared to those of the previous decade and to offset the Games’ CO2 emissions;
using 100% renewable energy at Games’ venues;
guaranteeing that 95% of infrastructure used will be existing or temporary, with the aim of all temporary infrastructures being reused or recycled;
ensuring solutions for clean mobility for athletes and spectators, in particular with all venues accessible via public transport;
ensuring complete gender parity among the qualified athletes for the Olympic Games;
stimulating economic activity via the creation of 150,000 jobs and over 1,200 SMEs and micro businesses used as part of the procurement process;
increasing the economic attractiveness of Seine-Saint-Denis, a department which has received 80% of investment and most Olympic facilities.

Furthermore, in 2019 the French government adopted a Legacy Plan for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which aims to ensure that these Games help improve the lives of French people in many ways: economically, in terms of education, employment, healthcare, disability access, sports, culture and the environment. The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs is helping implement this mechanism.

Find out more on the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games Organizing Committee website