Five months on from that balmy summer of love for all things Olympic and Paralympic, the graft goes on in the chill midwinter for Mathieu Hanotin, mayor of Saint-Denis.
The 46-year-old was among several French local government chiefs guiding counterparts from Brisbane and its satellite towns and cities around Olympic sites in Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen on the northern outskirts of Paris just before the start of the school holidays.