Céline Dion at Paris 2024

4 min readJul 27, 2024

The 2024 Paris Olympics opens today. What a stunning Opening Ceremony put up by the French!

The Olympic flame on the cauldron pays tributes to the first hot air baloon flight over the Jardin des Tuileries. (Photo credit: https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/paris-2024-all-about-the-electric-olympic-cauldron)

The big show began at 1.30am Singapore time and concluded at 5.30am with the stunning rendition of <<L’Hymne à l’amour>> (literally “Song to Love”) by Céline Dion.

Saves the best for last, as Céline Dion concludes the Opening Ceremony poignantly!

Soon after the cauldron bearing the Olympic flame floated over Jardin des Tuileries, the TV cameras switched to the middle-tier of the Eiffel Tower. And voilà, the Céline Dion moment to behold for many Olympics to come!

What a moment! As soon as the caldron floated, Céline Dion concluded the Opening Ceremony with her beautiful rendition of <<L’Hymne à l’amour>>. (Photo credit: https://news.sky.com/story/paris-2024-olympics-opening-ceremony-gets-under-way-with-starring-roles-for-lady-gaga-and-zinedine-zidane-13185552)

This is the first Opening Ceremony that was not staged in a stadium. Paris opens its doors to the world taking the world’s audience to her famous sites, such as Champs-Élysées, Trocadéro, Panthéon, Louvre and of course, the Eiffel Tower.

Highlights from the Opening Ceremony | Olympic Games Paris 2024

In the run-up to D-Day, social media leaked news that Céline Dion would perform at the ceremony. That should not be a surprise. French was her first language and she is one of the biggest icons in the francophone world (despite being a Canadian).

Céline Dion proclaiming her love for Paris in her Instagram post (https://www.instagram.com/p/C9z1cW5xxFr/?igsh=MTlkM2h1Z2h0OHNobA%3D%3D&img_index=3)

The question is which song would she perform? At the risk of being labelled a show-off, I had already guessed that <<L’Hymne à l’amour>> would be the song.

The choice ticked several boxes:

· Featuring a famous song of the late Édith Piaf

· Adding glamour to the world event by a non-French global star in Céline Dion (in addition to Lady Gaga, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams)

· Céline Dion performed this song at the American Music Awards on 22 November 2015 to express sympathy over the Paris terrorist attacks on 13 November that year.

· Poignancy of the song (more on that later)

Hymne à L’Amour by Céline Dion at the American Music Awards on 22 November 2015

To set the stage for the poignant choice, Juliette Armanet sang John Lennon’s <<Imagine>> before the Céline Dion moment. Through this song, John Lennon had imagined (sorry the pun) that there would be world peace and all the people have overcome the divisions of politics and religion.

“Imagine” thus fit one of the themes of the Games — inclusion.

Firstly, <<L’Hymne à l’amour>> is a love song. It was written by late Édith Piaf to pay tribute to her boyfriend, Marcel Cerdan, who died in a plane crash in 1949.

Her sadness was brilliantly portrayed by Marion Cotillard in this scene in the <<La Vie en Rose>> biographical movie.

Marion Cotillard played Édith Piaf in <<La Vie en Rose>>. This was the sad scene when Piaf learnt of the death of Marcel Cerdan.

[Due to a bug on Medium, you may not be able to play the above video. Try going direct to this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxZfu3egJ7Q&t=8s)]

Most of the verses expressed her sadness of losing her lover, such as “nothing matters if you love me”, “I will renounce my friends if you asked me to” and “If you die, you will be far from me”.

Lyrics of <<L’Hymne à l’amour>> (Credit: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/l039hymne-l039amour-hymn-love.html)

What makes the song so poignant this morning is the last verse of the song.

“Dieu réunit ceux qui s’aiment” (God reunites those who love one another)

And I thought what is special is the word “reunite” (rather than “unite”). It acknowledges that we have divisions today, but we could hope they will be gone tomorrow.