Medal success has offered the president welcome weeks of respite in his country’s fraught political climate – but what happens when the athletes go home?

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is famed for his enthusiastic hugging of sports stars – as the footballer Kylian Mbappé can attest. Macron walked on to the pitch, somewhat awkwardly pulled Mbappé to his chest and patted his head to console him after defeat to Argentina in the last World Cup.

But at the Paris Olympics, Macron’s touchy-feely approach to the nation’s athletes has exceeded anything that had gone before.