Politicians and athletes assure the public that “everything will be beautiful”, but those fleeing the city are not convinced.
When government posters recently appeared in subway stations advising Parisians to leave home for the Summer Olympics to avoid crowded public transport, Julie, a 24-year-old refugee escort, was perplexed.
“It’s a bit like the Covid lockdown all over again,” he said. “It’s like saying, ‘Parisians, stay home, out of the way, while all this money is spent on the Games. ‘Personally, I’ll stay away. I am pleased to evict the homeless from the city centre to make way for the Games. “
As Paris prepares for the Olympics and Paralympics, politicians, sports stars and the president, Emmanuel Macron, are trying to shore up public support for what is being billed as a “revolutionary” and radically different type of games – with half the usual carbon footprint and very little building, to avoid wasteful infrastructure investment.
Many Parisians are enthusiastic – of about 8m tickets sold so far, French people bought more than 3m, including 1.7m bought by people in the Paris region – but others in the French capital want to flee the city to avoid the mayhem, or rent their apartments at high prices. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, recently urged its residents: “Don’t leave this summer. Don’t leave, it would be idiocy. This is going to be incredible.” Yannick Noah, the French tennis star and captain of the French men’s Paralympic tennis team, said: “The moaning has to stop … The whole world will be here … It’s going to be beautiful and I think there are lots of people who don’t realise that.”
Macron called the Olympics “the pride of the nation,” and another 300,000 people worked for 45,000 volunteer jobs at the Olympics. Paris is billed as an Olympic Games “for others”, with amateur athletes from the general public directing the Olympic evening. Marathon race for the first time. The two major projects, the Olympic Village and the Olympic Aquatics Centre, once completed, aim to revitalise the working-class neighbourhoods of Seine-Saint-Denis, north of the capital.
But with only a few months to go before they pass (the Olympics will be held from July 26 to August 11 and the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8), the demanding situations persist. The gigantic opening rite on the Seine, attended by 10,000 athletes in 100 boats, will float on 6km of water in front of thousands of spectators, which remains a complicated task. It is the first time that an opening ceremony of the Olympic Games has been held outdoors in the large athletics stadium. The airspace will be closed, with more than 45,000 police officers present. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the Senate this week that the security of the Games was the “biggest logistical and security challenge” his branch has faced. There will be one million anti-terrorist checks and investigations in the run-up period.
Another key question is whether the Seine will be empty enough to allow swimming in triathlons and open water swimming. Swimming in the Seine has been banned for a century due to harmful levels of pollution. But a frantic clean-up operation has led to the painting of water monitoring and filtering stations in hopes of reopening the river for the Olympics and beyond. Macron promised to swim there himself. Key bacteria tests will be carried out in June and the main aim is to prevent too much waste from being dumped into the river when it rains. Brazilian open water swimmer Ana Marcela Cunha told AFP this week that there had to be a plan B – holding the swimming events elsewhere – if the water wasn’t empty enough. She said: “It’s not about erasing the history of the Seine. We know what the Alexandre III bridge and the Eiffel Tower represent, but the physical condition of the athletes will have to come first. “
In a tense political climate in the run-up to the European elections, led by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, right-wing TV pundits continue to discuss the Olympics. There are disputes about whether things are French and nationalistic enough. Added to this is the hypothesis that Aya Nakamura, one of the most listened to French-speaking singers in the world, could sing Edith Piaf in the opening rite and the fact that the cross on the Invalides building in Paris did not appear on the Olympic posters. Meanwhile, public transport, whose initial offer from Paris for the Olympics was intended to be free, will double the value of its Olympic tickets.
Hotel prices have skyrocketed. A study by Le Parisien found that a hotel in the 15th arrondissement that charged €90 last summer will charge €1,363 for the Olympics. began to decrease slightly and stabilize.
The Paris Games are also subject to the most intense financial scrutiny of any Olympic Games, after organizers promised a transparent and moral strategy without the usual disruptions of overspending and corruption. French financial prosecutors are investigating contracts for possible conflicts of interest and favoritism. The 2024 creation committee, which is already subject to scrutiny through the French Anti-Corruption Agency and the French Anti-Corruption Agency, said it was cooperating fully. Another investigation focuses on the salary distribution of Tony Estanguet, three-time Olympic canoe champion and Lead Organizer of the Paris Olympic Games. Estanguet, who is paid less than Sebastian Coe when he was the lead organizer of the 2012 London Olympics, said he “doesn’t make a decision about how much he gets paid or how he works. “
The government will hold urgent negotiations with unions next week on wages, situations and overtime to be paid to avoid conceivable movements in the public sector and transport staff during the Games. Police unions have already received special bonuses for this period. When the government last month unveiled If each of France’s first schoolchildren received a €2 coin and a Special Olympics commemorative booklet, some teachers’ unions complained that the €16 million fee would have been better spent on schools.
Estanguet said: “It’s a little bit inevitable that such a big event raises questions and worries, and Paris is the same as previous host cities who also, at this stage, were asking how it would go … but, factually, the indicators are all very reassuring. The Olympic village was completed ahead of schedule. Six months before the Games, we’ve sold more than 8m tickets … 400,000 people wanted to run the marathon, more than 100,000 applied to carry the flame when we only have 10,000 places. We really feel a sense of enthusiasm …Everything is going according to plan, and that’s what’s important.”