Historical References You May Have Missed During the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony

The Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremony on Friday was incroyable. I cried at the end when Celine Dion made her spectacular comeback and I’ve already watched my favorite parts from the ceremony numerous times.

The ceremony was creative, breathtaking and dramatic, and the organizers didn’t let the drenching rain stop it from being one of the most memorable openings.

The opening of the Paris 2024 ceremony was held on the Seine with lashing rain but that didn’t stop from the French from putting on a spectacular show.

Held for the first time outside a stadium, the opening highlighted everything I love about France and Paris — the creativity, history, literature, art, and openness that has inspired my own artistic practice.

There was a lot that happened during the four-hour ceremony and parts of it weren’t even broadcast — a tightrope walker across the Paris rooftops, an air show making a heart. Some dancing on the roofs was cancelled due to the rain and many parts were obstructed by the rain on the camera lens.

And from what I have gathered from posts from my American friends and the news, many references to French history and culture were missed while some sections were left out (likely due to commercial breaks which we thankfully didn’t have here in France).

Here are some of the historical references to French history that you may have missed:

Marie Antoinette singing a popular French Revolution song

One of my favorite acts was the French metal band Gojira’s take on “Ça Ira,” a popular French Revolution song. The location of the scene wasn’t by chance- it was at the Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was held prisoner before she was beheaded at Place de la Concorde (where urban sports are going to be held for the Olympics for the first time, including BMX and skateboarding).

Marie Antoinette holding her own head in a metal take on the French Revolution.

The Minions

You may have been confused by the animation of minions in the Seine. But the minions were actually created by a French animation studio. It was also a nod to the time the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 and found two years later.

Parkour and the roofs of Paris

For most of the night, we saw a hooded figure dash across the city with the torch. The mysterious torchbearer regularly performed parkour across the Parisian rooftops, an homage to the French-born sport.

The mysterious hooded figure was the main character through all 12 acts of the opening.

The figure itself was a tribute to Assassin’s Creed, a video game created by, you guessed it, a French studio. It was also a reference to the man in the iron mask, a prisoner in the Bastille in the 17th century whose identity is still unknown and the Phantom of the Opera.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

In one scene during the opening, we see a man overlooking Paris. It was a reference to Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame and the highly anticipated opening of the fire-damaged cathedral in December.

The first ever sci-fi film

The opening made a lot of references to French art and culture. Some are well known, like Les Miserables and The Little Prince. But did you see the animation of the moon with a rocket in it’s eye? That was a nod to the first sci-fi film ever created in 1902, Le Voyage Dans La Lune, which also happened to be created by French director Georges Méliès.

A scene that wasn’t shown in the U.S., this comical song was an ode to French gastronomy.

The crocodiles of Paris

During the opening sea in the sewers/canals of Paris we see a crocodile. This might seem like fiction, but it is in fact true. A crocodile named Eleonore once lived in the Paris sewers. (

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wrote a delightful children’s book retelling this bizarre part of Paris history).

Joan of Arc on a mechanical horse

One of the most dramatic (and long) scenes was when a hooded woman raced across the Seine on a mechanical horse. An ode to Joan of Arc, the mechanical horse hints at the steampunk mechanics built in Nantes at Les Machines d'Ile.

The horsewoman racing through the Seine to deliver the Olympic flag.

The first hot-air balloon

The opening ceremony isn’t complete without the lighting of the torch, and Paris went all out. Their choice of a hot-air balloon in the Jardin des Tuileries to hold the torch is a tribute to the inventors, the Montgolfier brothers. The first time a hot-air balloon trip reached its highest point of 1000 meters was when it flew over the Tuileries.