Paris Olympics 2024: Netizens blast France for ‘subliminal attack’ on Statue of Liberty: ‘This is anti-American’

Paris Olympics 2024: While some performances at the opening ceremony of Paris Olympics have already sparked outrage on social media, netizens were quick to point out another blunder, accusing France of making a subliminal attack on the Statue of Liberty.

A video widely shared on X, formerly Twitter, is captioned as “Opening TV animation for Olympics has some animated balloon travelling past the Statue of Liberty and she is beaten battered and has bullet holes in her.”

Slamming France's President Emmanuel Macron, netizens asked, “Is that what they want?”

Meanwhile, several people called the clip “anti-American”, with one commenting, “The Olympics is predicting things again. Predictive programming go crazy, here we go again.”

The social media users emphasised on three values of Olympism -- excellence, respect and friendship and claimed that they “are not seeing any if these sentiments.” They went on to say, “This insult has no place in the Olympics.”

While a second user said, “Every advertising sponsor of the Paris Olympics needs to answer if they support this kind of stuff,” one more added, “No one will be surprised if something terrible happens in Paris.”

Amid the criticism, one user wrote, “People really don’t realize that the Statue of Liberty in NYC is a REPLICA of the exact same statue in Paris.”

The viral video has garnered over 1 million views and over 2 thousand repost so far.

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Statue of Liberty and its French connection

The Statue of Liberty arrived in America on June 17, 1885 as a gift from France to mark a commemoration of the friendship between the two countries. The statue was presented to the US ambassador to honour the alliance they formed during the American Revolution, to acknowledge America as a defender of liberty and inspire the French people to uphold the same ideal.

The French workers started working on the statue, formally called “Liberty Enlightening the World,” in 1875.

The sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (bar-TOLE-dee) imagined about the statue of a woman with a torch that was burning brightly with the flame of liberation. It took around 21 years to turn Bartholdi's idea into reality. While French supporters raised funds to erect the statue, Americans donated for the pedestal it would be placed on.

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