Postwar modernisation and the stadium, 1945–98

Abstract

This chapter traces the increasingly rapid changes to stadia and sporting practices in France during the last half of the twentieth century, while simultaneously connecting those transformations to parallel developments beyond French frontiers. The new Parc des Princes, rebuilt between 1967 and 1972, reflected the ongoing processes of modernisation and urbanisation in France during the first thirty years after the Second World War. But the changes to sport and its spaces evident in the new Parc also constituted another aspect of postwar modernisation across Europe itself, constituted by efforts to reinvent mass spectatorship and to accommodate television broadcasting. The Stade de France’s completion in advance of the 1998 World Cup also showcased the way that the stadium in France was now optimistically envisioned as an anchor for highly-symbolic international sporting competitions that projected positive messages about French national prestige and sporting identity. At the same time, the changes to sport and sporting spaces in France were part of a process of sporting globalisation that reflected the increasingly common values placed on stadia as urban spaces in France and other countries in Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia.