The Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be broadcast in the clear for two and a half weeks on France Télévisions channels, namely France 2, France 3 and France 4. Or maybe not. Two days before the long-awaited opening ceremony, the Olympiad organized in France began on Wednesday afternoon with the first matches of the men’s football tournament (Argentina-Morocco and Uzbekistan-Spain) followed by the entry into the competition of the French rugby 7s team led by the new star Antoine Dupont (against the United States).
France 2 went on air at 2:30 p.m., with Cécile Grès presenting live from the Stade de France, and then broadcast the football match between Argentina led by Javier Mascherano and Morocco led by Achraf Hakimi, from 3 p.m., from the Geoffroy-Guichard side in Saint-Etienne. The match was followed with passion, by some football fans but especially by the Moroccan community in France. The Atlas Lions even opened the scoring before half-time through Soufiane Rahimi (45th + 2).
Rugby 7s on France 2, cartoons on channel 4
The match was broadcast again in the second half, but France TV commentators warned viewers that the game was being switched to rugby 7s. We were then able to see the second Moroccan goal, scored by Rahimi on a penalty (51st minute), but not the Argentinian goal scored by Giuliano Simeone (68th minute). To follow the end of the match via France Télévisions channels, you had to go to the audiovisual group’s website (france.tv). Outcry on social networks. Only Eurosport subscribers were able to follow the game in its entirety (on Eurosport 1).
France 2 logically broadcast Antoine Dupont’s Olympic debut, on the pitch in Saint-Denis (for a disappointing draw against the United States), but France Télévisions could also have “sent” Argentina-Morocco to France 4. But no. The 4 programming was not disrupted, with cartoons following one after the other throughout the afternoon. Especially since the clash in the Chaudron offered enormous suspense. The Albiceleste managed to snatch a draw (2-2) with a goal from Cristian Medina at the end of the XXL added time of the match, in the 106th minute!
