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During the Labour Party's preparation for the 1948 London Olympic Games, which were held from 29 July to 16 August and were, although only three years after the Yalta Agreement of 11 February 1945, an attempt to point the United Kingdom resolutely into the future, the French press did not hesitate to criticize the resourcefulness and relaxed attitude of the British. France's ambivalent perception was, moreover, further magnified by the absence of Germany, Japan and the USSR, which reopened the question of politics in sport and its use for propaganda purposes, 12 years after the nationalist excesses of the Berlin Games. Analysis of coverage concerning the 'Reconciliation Games' in the main French papers highlights the contrasted effect of the London Olympics and illustrates the predominant weight of political ideologies in the construction of national identities. Finally, it underlines the recurrent difficulties encountered in bringing together the French and the British who were, immediately after the Second World War, divided between the necessity to commemorate and be hopeful for a pacified Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]