The Guardian view on France’s Olympic summer: searching

Enthusiasm for Paris 2024 has yet to ignite, but Emmanuel Macron needs a successful Games to revive his flagging presidency

Emmanuel Macron has sometimes been criticised over a tendency to hector and lecture his fellow citizens, when a demonstration of empathy might have worked better. It was not, for example, a good look when, in 2018, the French president told a young jobseeker: “I can find you a job just by crossing the road.”

In the lead-up to the Paris Olympics – now less than 50 days away – Mr Macron has again been adopting a dubious tough love strategy, this time in relation to France’s athletes. Having previously lamented the modest size of the national medal haul at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he used a recent television interview to demand a top-five finish for France this summer on home soil.