Fireworks and lasers light up Paris Paralympics in electrifying finale

With an explosion of fireworks, laserbeams, breakdance and a thumping set by the giants of French electronica music, France bid goodbye to the Paralympic Games last night, with the biggest party it had ever thrown.

- Angelique Chrisafis

The feel-good summer of athletic achievement in Paris had turned crowds hoarse from cheering and forever changed the nation's attitude to sport and disability. Now Parisians were desperately sad to say goodbye to it all.

But France wanted one last frenzied night of celebration and the Stade de France in Saint-Denis was transformed into a massive electronicadance party with some of the world's top elite para athletes doing the conga around the stadium on an athletics track where days before records were being broken.

The Paris Games organisers said they wanted the Paralympics closing ceremony to "show we know how to party" - as if anyone still had any doubt that the French capital liked letting its hair down.

Jean-Michel Jarre, France's godfather of synthesisers and stadium laser shows, headed a riotous showcase of France electro dance amid flashing light-shows, hundreds of criss-crossing laser beams and a walls of flames on stage.

Earlier, the French Republican Guard military band had blasted out Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive as para athletes paraded with their countries' flags.

In a nod to its controversial decision to introduce breakdance to the Olympics, Paris also signed off with a staggering breakdance performance by many disabled dancers that drew gasps from the athletes watching.