The 2012 British opening ceremony has sadly become a shorthand for nostalgic Remainy twee. But la grande débâcle in Paris last night brought back with a jolt how magnificent it was.

The creators of Paris’s opening ceremony were faced with a challenge: how to convey, in capsule form, the history and culture of France, a comparatively small nation that has provided such riches over the centuries – transcendent beauty, epoch-defining philosophy, a motor of  artistic innovation and sophistication.