Was expected the presence of around 4,463 athletes from the 169 participating National Paralympic Committees and also around 1,300 delegates at the field.[1] Most of the ceremony took place in pouring rain, which drenched the performers and athletes, although the crowd remained dry.[2][3]
The closing ceremony took place at the Stade de France and, as per tradition, involved a parade of flags and athletes and the handover ceremony.[1] It was officially titled "Paris est une Fête", a large open-air party to celebrate the end of the Games that would pay tribute to the history of electronic music and the cultural history of Paris.[1] As with the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony was directed by Thomas Jolly; he stated that "we want to get the capital buzzing for one last dance, offering a musical and luminous climax that will bring the whole world together for an unforgettable night".[1]
French singer Santa opened the festivities, performing Vivre pour le Meilleur [fr] by Johnny Hallyday.[5] The performance was accompanied by video sequences of images from the closing ceremonies of the three previous Games. French producer Victor le Masne [fr]'s Parade, the anthem of the Paris 2024 Games,[6] was sounded to launch a celebration of the athletes who participated in the games.[1]
Speeches were given by Tony Estanguet and Andrew Parsons, with Parsons welcoming the commitment to make the Paris Métro accessible as a legacy of the Games.[7] The six newly elected members of the International Paralympic Committee Athletes' Council were introduced: Lenine Cunha from Portugal, the first athlete with an intellectual disability to join the Council; Vladyslava Kravchenko [sk] a swimmer from Malta; Martina Caironi, a para-athlete from Italy; Yoomin Won, a wheelchair basketball player from South Korea; Tan Yujiao, a powerlifter from China; and Denise Schindler, a para-cyclist from Germany.[1][8]
Breaking comes to the Stadium
Two thousand of the volunteers who had supported the games paraded while the band played Johnny Hallyday's Que je t'aime.[1] Eight break dancers, some with disabilities, performed, a nod to the introduction of breaking to the Olympic Program. French DJ Cut Killer supplied the music, with mixes that included Jacques Dutronc's Les Cactus, Suprême NTM's Seine-Saint-Denis Style and Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa.[1][3]
At the Jardin des Tuileries, blind musical duo Amadou and Mariam, accompanied by a string quartet, performed Serge Gainsbourg's Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais while the flames below the Paralympics cauldron were extinguished. Meanwhile, six French Paralympic athletes medallists brought the Paralympic flame into the Stade de France: swimmer Ugo Didier and blind footballer Frédéric Villeroux [fr], the first and last French gold medallists of the games; Charles Noakes, a gold medallist in badminton; Gloria Agblemagnon, a silver medallist in athletics; Aurélie Aubert, France's first Paralympic boccia champion and one of its Closing Ceremony flag bearers; and cyclist Mathieu Bosredon, France's most successful athlete at the games who won three gold medals in cycling. Aubert and Bosredon blew out the flame.[1][10]
Journey of the wave
Closing ceremony electronic musicClosing ceremony electronic musicClosing ceremony electronic music
With the formalities over, French composer Jean-Michel Jarre, the father of electronic music in France, assembled twenty-three other DJs to turn the Stade de France into a discotheque to bring the ceremony to a loud finale:[1][11]
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