The 7ft 4in basketball star’s stature, both literal and figurative, says something about France’s ability to project itself beyond Europe
In France, the days leading up to the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics have unfolded amid a frazzled atmosphere of heightened anxiety. Traffic bans, QR codes, and security barriers have effectively barred public access to the center of Paris, where the bulk of Friday’s opening ceremony will take place. Parliamentary elections have thrown the country’s politics into disarray, with the outlines of a new government still not clear weeks after left-wing parties united to form an electoral coalition to prevent the far right from gaining power. A small industry of panels and podcasts has emerged to debate whether France has any realistic hope of meeting President Emmanuel Macron’s target of a top-five medal finish in the home Olympics. And everywhere a broader cultural worry about France’s place in the world – of sport, of politics, of language – amid the ongoing supremacy of the United States and the rise of China and India has accompanied the countdown to Friday. The modern Olympics were, of course, the creation of a Frenchman – Pierre de Coubertin – and French remains one of the two official languages of the Games. But “over the last 30 years,” laments a recent piece in the French press, the “language of Molière” has “lost ground to the language of Shakespeare.” “Will we speak French at these Olympics?” asks Le Figaro, mournfully.
Into this unusual climate of hope and declinism steps the scarcely believable frame of Victor Wembanyama. Everything about the 20-year-old prodigy of French basketball is big: the potential, the hype, and of course the height, which is impressive whether it’s quoted according to American convention (7ft 4in) or European (224 centimeters). After years of watching various Greeks (Giannis Antetokounmpo), Serbs (Nikola Jokić), and Slovenians (Luka Dončić) capture all the headlines for non-US players in the NBA, the French now have an authentic superstar to call their own, and he’s perhaps the closest to a sure thing that the world of basketball has seen since LeBron was stomping around high school courts in Sampras shorts. After just one season in the NBA – which saw him record a string of miraculous scoring performances, dominate players in the prime of their careers at both ends of the court, claim the rookie of the year award by unanimous vote, and richly deliver on the promise announced by his selection as the number one pick in the 2023 draft – Wembanyama has become, along with Kylian Mbappé, the most recognizable French athlete on the planet, and the expectations he carries into these Games are immense.