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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

How you can buy Paris Olympics and Paralympics collector’s stamps

Stamp collectors - and those looking for affordable Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics souvenirs - have plenty of options with La Poste's special limited-edition Games offering, including a special stamp depicting the Olympic cauldron.

Published: 3 September 2024 09:55 CEST
How you can buy Paris Olympics and Paralympics collector's stamps
An employee checks the quality of the stamps created for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on March 7, 2024. (Photo by ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP)

For fans of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the French postal service, La Poste, is offering a way to memorialise the event.  

La Poste has launched special Olympics themed collector’s stamps, which are now available for purchase online.

The most eye-catching collector’s stamp shows an image of the Olympic cauldron, which has become one of the stand-out attractions of the Games involving a hot-air balloon carrying the torch.

There have already been calls to make the cauldron a permanent part of the Paris landscape.

READ MORE: How to visit the Olympic cauldron in Paris during the Paralympics

The collector’s stamp went on sale in early August, with 130,000 copies made.

La Poste wrote on their website: “‘The Cauldron of the Paris 2024 Games features a revolutionary flame”, noting that it is “without fuel, formed solely from water and light.

“This unique device takes the form of a ring of fire carried by a hot-air balloon that takes to the skies of Paris every evening”.

This stamp is worth €1.96 and can be used for international mail, up to 20g in weight. You can purchase a sheet of four stamps for €10.

What about other collector stamps and souvenirs?

There are other plenty of souvenirs to purchase. For those looking for other Olympics themed stamps, there is the collector’s set of three stamps depicting the three different Olympic and Paralympic medals (Gold, Silver, Bronze). 

The stamps are in the shape of the medals, and they come in a packet in the shape of a podium. One package with the three international stamps (up to 20g) is €10.

La Poste is also selling a collection of eight stamps depicting the Olympic torch relay route for €19.50, as well as a package of four stamps showing the Phryge mascot competing in Olympic and Paralympic events (for €10).

Finally, there is the official Olympics and Paralympics stamp showing the Eiffel Tower. A single stamp is €1.96, and it is for international letters. 

Where can I purchase these items?

You can find all of the limited-edition Olympics collector items sold by La Poste online.

In person, RTL reported that 1,000 post offices in france distribute the Paris 2024 licenced products (more info here). In the Paris area, there are three temporary Paris 2024 post offices – one is located in the Athletes Village, another is at the main press centre of the Palais des Congrès de Paris, and the third is at the International Broadcast Center in Le Bourget.

READ MORE: French post office rolls out scratch-and-sniff baguette stamp

It is not clear how long the products remain available for purchase.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

The end of Olympic escapism for gloomy France

The end of the widely hailed Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris this weekend will be greeted with pride and relief, as well as trepidation in a country in the throes of a deep political crisis.

Published: 8 September 2024 09:01 CEST
The end of Olympic escapism for gloomy France

After months of gloom and self-doubt in the run-up to the start of the Olympics on July 26, Paris and the country at large threw themselves into the spirit of the Games, embracing new national sporting heroes along the way.

The closing ceremony for the Paralympics on Sunday, when the Olympic flame will be extinguished for a final time, will mark the end of six weeks of thrilling sport and almost flawless organisation that produced a sense of escapism from the country’s divisions and woes.

“The idea is to finish with a huge party that will prevent the tears of those who might be saying to themselves ‘damn it, it’s all finished’,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet said ahead of a ceremony that will see the national stadium turn into a giant nightclub.

“We’re going to have a party and then on Monday maybe we’ll be disappointed because it really will be all over,” he added.

More than 20 top French DJs from “French touch” legend Cassius to Martin Solveig are set to close out the Games, with a line-up overseen by 76-year-old French electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre.

“I think that we will all feel a sense of joy, pride, the impression that something is ending that has enabled us feel good together and to show to the world how we can enjoy ourselves,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo told reporters on Friday.

“I will fight against the idea that we have to move on from this enchanted period to resume our lives and our sad passions,” she added.

Political instability

She was referring to the morose national mood before the Olympics, made worse by snap parliamentary elections called by President Emmanuel Macron that produced a hung parliament in June.

After more than 50 days without a permanent government, including the entire Olympics period, Macron named a new prime minister on Thursday, 73-year-old former minister and top EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

READ ALSO: What happens next now that France has a new PM?

Analysts say the country is set for a period of severe instability, with Barnier’s grip on power seen as fragile and dependent on tacit support from the far-right National Rally party, which is the largest single party in the new National Assembly.

“One of the positive aspects of the Games was that the political class respected the idea of an Olympic truce,” Paul Dietschy, a history and sports professor at the Universite of Franche-Comte in France, told AFP.

“There wasn’t chaos, or demonstrations or strikes, and France’s image has ended up being boosted,” he said.

Other non-events during the Olympics and Paralymics were also cause for celebration.

French security forces helped keep the more than 10 million visitors safe, preventing a much-feared terror attack.

The creaking Paris metro system performed efficiently, defying predictions of travel problems, while the city’s bus drivers, garbage collectors and municipal workers kept the city moving, clean and well-organised.

“The state is powerful in France and things worked well,” Dietschy added. “The success of the event has contradicted France’s pessimism and cynicism and the idea that everything is going badly and is badly organised.”

‘Powerful emotions’ 

Although mayor Hidalgo hopes the city and France more broadly can bask in the afterglow of a national triumph, most observers see signs the country is already moving on from its sports-inspired break from reality.

Hidalgo’s controversial suggestion to retain the Olympic logo on the Eiffel Tower until the next edition in Los Angeles in 2028 has already divided Parisians and local lawmakers.

READ ALSO: Paris mayor says Olympic rings to stay on Eiffel Tower ‘until 2028’

“It will remain an interlude, moments of powerful emotions that were experienced at the time,” Jean-Daniel Levy, a public opinion expert from polling company Harris Interactive told AFP of the Olympic and Paralympic period.

As with all previous Olympiads, organisers are hoping for legacy achievements which have often proved hard to measure or fleeting in the past.

It remains to be seen whether a short-term spike in interest in sports results in a durable increase in physical activity.

The majority of the public investment linked to the Games has been targeted at regenerating the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb northeast of Paris, which is the mainland’s poorest and most crime-ridden area.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Dietschy told AFP.

A public audit into the cost of the Games, as well as several criminal investigations into organising committee members, including one targeting the salary of Games supremo Estanguet, could also tarnish the image of the event as a national success story.

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