Paris, Uncharacteristically Giddy, Bids Au Revoir to the Olympics

There were French firemen flipping like acrobats, a musician playing a piano that hung vertically in the air, and Olympic athletes overwhelming the stage and forming a mosh pit around the French electro-pop band Phoenix.

The Paris Olympics ended much as they began, with a raucous spectacle before a joyous crowd, a generous supply of strobe lights, smoke and fireworks. And then the actor Tom Cruise rappelled off the stadium roof to collect the Olympic flag from the gymnast Simone Biles and carry it off on his motorcycle, à la “Top Gun” and “Mission: Impossible” to Los Angeles, where the next summer Olympics is set to take place in 2028.

“Together, we have experienced the Games like nothing we have ever lived before,” said Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris Olympics organizing committee, adding that of all the records broken, among them was one for marriage proposals. “From one day to the next, time stood still and a whole country got goose bumps.”

As Paris bids au revoir to the Olympic Games, many are reluctant to let go of its magic: of the adrenaline-fueled excitement, of the party free of political debate, of the sense of time deliciously suspended, like the glowing Olympic cauldron that has hovered wistfully over the city every night.