Emmanuel Macron is praising the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony amid the attacks and death threats organizers received.
A portion of the opening ceremony featuring drag queens came under fire after it was believed to be mocking Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Religious groups and high-profile conservative voices like Fuller House star Candace Cameron Bure called the interpretation “disgusting.”
However, the opening ceremony recreated the feast of the Gods, and Macron recently praised the organizers’ “audacity”.
“I am scandalized and sad about what he’s been through,” Macron told reporters, according to Reuters. “The French and the whole world were very proud of this opening ceremony, it made us very proud. His audacity did a lot of good to a lot of people.”
Macron continued, “It showed France’s audacity, and it all happened with the suitable artistic freedom. Nothing justifies threats to an artist.”
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director behind the opening ceremony, recently clarified the controversy over the particular moment featuring drag queens.
“It’s not my inspiration and that should be pretty obvious. There’s Dionysus arriving on a table. Why is he there? First and foremost because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology and the tableau is called ‘Festivity’,” Jolly told BFMTV.
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Jolly continued, “He is also the god of wine, which is also one of the jewels of France, and the father of Séquana, the goddess of the river Seine. The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics.”
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Jolly said that he never intentionally wanted to “denigrate anyone,” adding, “My aim was to create a ceremony that heals and a ceremony that reconciles, but also a ceremony that reaffirms the values which are those of our Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and absolutely not to mock anyone.”