The situation is particularly unexpected. Football does not usually excite many people during the Olympic Games, but the first match of Thierry Henry’s French team (3-0 against the United States), last Wednesday, attracted a good audience (4.42 million viewers on France 2). This was, of course, before the grand opening ceremony of Paris 2024, on Friday, and the start of the other competitions on Saturday. The first half of the second match of Alexandre Lacazette’s Blues, on Saturday evening against Guinea, was not broadcast in the clear by France Télévisions.
And for good reason, France 2 concluded its first major day of competition, notably with swimming and fencing, France 3 offered the entry into the competition of the French handball team, for a great match against Denmark, and France 4 preferred to broadcast a film, Restless by Gus Van Sant, released in 2011. France TV therefore sent football lovers to their France.tv platform, for a streaming match accessible for free after registration.
Before France TV, Eurosport prefers Israel-Paraguay
The Paris Olympics can also be found on the many Eurosport channels, available in particular in the sports pack. France-Guinea was announced on Eurosport 5 (as reported by the French team’s X account when publishing the French starting eleven), but the channel did not broadcast the start of the match! Channel number 5 broadcast Israel-Paraguay, which started at 7 p.m. and, at the final whistle of this game which turned in favor of the South American team in added time (2-4), it was the six goals of the match that were offered!
The second match of the Blues thus began at the 11th minute on Eurosport 5 and a technical problem did not allow the sound to be heard from the stadium, only the commentary being there! On France 2, finally, the second half was broadcast, with the duo Fabien Lévêque-Loïc Rémy on commentary.
