Bleachers on the banks of the Seine in front of the Musée d’Orsay, for the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (Photo -Jmex)
On Friday, July 26, more than 200 million viewers worldwide and more than 300,000 spectators on the banks of the Seine River watched the gigantic Olympic boat parade.
By Christopher Bonin
Just a few days before, the Aretha Franklin Park was inaugurated in Paris, to the delight of Parisians and American tourists.
During the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, on July 26, 2024 in the heart of Paris, the boat parade on the Seine River carried athletes under the Debilly footbridge. This arching pedestrian footbridge was transformed into a lively podium to fashion and creation in Paris. Great dance and music performances there, on the bridge, in the rain, evoked messages of peace, friendship, solidarity, tolerance and climate emergency.
This is also where the American Robert Fulton made history. It was near the Debilly footbridge that this genius inventor, born in 1765 in Pennsylvania, tested the first steamboat in Paris in 1803, the same year as the Louisiana Purchase from France.
A marble plaque fixed on the quay commemorates this historic event. The plaque reads: “The American engineer Robert Fulton presented on August 9, 1803 to citizens Bossut, Carnot, Prony and Volney his water cart powered by fire which made its first evolutions on the Seine.” But it was in the United States that Fulton launched the first regular steam line in 1807. This invention (tested in Paris) soon became a common sight on the Mississippi and in French-rooted Louisiana, in particular.
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