00:00We are very happy. It was a very beautiful ceremony that looked exactly like what we dreamed of.
00:10We have been working hard for years to honor France, the Olympic Games, the athletes.
00:17We wanted to offer a completely new ceremony, a first in the history of a stadium on the Seine.
00:24A ceremony with a lot of audacity, with a lot of messages, with beautiful surprises,
00:30whether it's in the music, whether it's in the light, whether it's on the basin and the honor of the athletes.
00:36So yes, I am very happy. I would really like to congratulate all the teams that worked,
00:42because it was an incredible team that was able to overcome challenges.
00:46Until the last moment, with the rain, the artists fought to put energy, it was beautiful.
00:52We held on well in this moment of difficulty, we held on well until the end.
00:59And we are very happy to launch the Paris 2024 Games in this way.
01:03I think that first of all, the idea, in an Olympic ceremony, there are necessarily two hymns.
01:08There is the anthem of the country and the Olympic anthem.
01:11But in France, we are also lucky to have the hymn to love, sung by Edith Piaf,
01:15in any case written and interpreted by Edith Piaf.
01:18We wanted this third hymn in the ceremony.
01:21And with the team that surrounds us, we wondered who was the greatest singer who could sing love so well.
01:29And it's Céline Dion. In any case, it is this name that we all agreed on.
01:34So we simply offered her this concept, this idea, to close on the flight of the basin,
01:41to hear the hymn to love. And I think that's what seduced her.
01:48Which means to adapt, to adapt a lot of things, to adapt where it was dangerous for some artists.
01:55Some roof, for example. And we had to do these kind of things.
01:59But without losing, I think, the concept, without losing the spirit and without losing any ambition.
02:06This is what we are trying to do since day one.
02:10I think each country has to take its risk to offer the most beautiful ceremony.
02:18A ceremony in the stadium, it can be very beautiful too.
02:22And we wanted to do a ceremony out of a stadium to honor Paris.
02:27We saw this Eiffel Tower, in particular, as we had never seen it before.
02:32And it was important for us to rely on this city of Paris that makes the whole world dream.
02:38And that was very beautiful tonight.
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