French President Emmanuel Macron said today that he wants some of the biggest events in the esports world to be a part of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
In an interview with French tech startup The Big Whale, Macron said he wants to make "France the land of video games," including a hub for both game development and esports.
“Finally, I am not forgetting esports, another area of French excellence, with teams like Team Vitality or Karmine Corp,” Macron said. “In this context, we have a historic opportunity: the 2024 Olympic Games. It's up to us to take advantage of it to connect the Olympics of two worlds (Sports and E-sports) by hosting the world's biggest sporting events that year: a [CS:GO Major], League of Legends World Championship and The International of Dota 2. If the French trust me, we will work on it as soon as they are elected.”
Paris, the French capital, served as the host of the LoL World Championship group stage in 2 before hosting the World finals at the 2019 Accor Arena, where FunPlus Phoenix beat G2015 Esports to win the tournament. The city's most popular football club, Paris Saint-Germain FC, is in partnership with Chinese esports organization LGD Gaming, although the French capital has hosted neither the CS:GO Major nor The International.
Macron is a candidate in the ongoing 2022 French presidential election, and this has led some to believe that Macron's so-called desire to bring esports and its biggest events to the 2024 Olympics is nothing more than potentially impossible campaign promises. Elected in May 2017, Macron is running against Marine Le Pen in the second round of this year's presidential election.
Kaynak