2024 GAMES PROMISE PROGRESS
▶ French suburbs such as Seine-Saint-Denis set for overhaul but some locals aren’t convinced
One of the most deprived suburbs in Paris is expected to be a big winner now the French capital will host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games with thousands of homes and a new swimming centre to be built in Seine-Saint-Denis.
The poorest of France’s 101 mainland departments, Seine-Saint-Denis sprawls east and north from Paris, much of it a drab expanse of grey buildings, abandoned factories and poverty.
Paris learned on Monday that it was a near certainty to be the IOC’s chosen host for the 2024 games when its only remaining rival, Los Angeles, agreed to wait another four years.
Organisers of the games say their aim to lift Seine-Saint-Denis’s fortunes helped their case with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“Bearing in mind the symbolic and real divides which there sometimes still are between Paris and its suburbs, this young, working class place, with young people of all colours and all origins allows us to say to the IOC that these Games are a wonderful opportunity to show that Paris is bigger than Paris,” Stephane Troussel, president of Seine-Saint-Denis, told Reuters.
Not all locals are sure of the benefits however.
Some have half an eye on Stratford, a swathe of east London that was redeveloped for the 2012 Games, but where rising rents have pushed locals out of similarly created new housing there.
“When there is a lot of investment landlords will also take advantage by adding a bit, increasing the rents,” said Fode Abass Toure, a 45-yearold resident of Bobigny.
“And even the restaurants will try to increase prices of products because a lot of tourists will come.”
Seine-Saint-Denis has a reputation as a socialist bastion where the French Communist Party and hard-left have a strong presence. It was in the area where the deaths of two youths who were hiding from police in a power station set off 2005 riots. Unemployment in and around its main towns of Saint-Denis and Bobigny is approaching double the national average at more than 18 per cent. Three out of 10 of its 1.5 million-strong population are immigrants or their children, mostly from Africa, a similar proportion are classed as living in poverty.
The Paris Games – which have a relatively modest budget by recent standards at around €7 billion (Dh30.33bn), will leave behind two permanent new developments, both of them in Seine-Saint-Denis.
They are the Olympic Village itself, which will be converted after the Games to provide more than 3,500 homes, and a swimming centre to stand alongside the Stade de France stadium, built for the 1998 football World Cup, now to be reborn as the Olympic Stadium where track and field athletes will compete.
Paris 2024 – enthusiastically backed by the country’s tennis-playing new president Emmanuel Macron – plans to make the most of the city’s existing sports facilities and take full advantage of its landmarks.
Boxers will compete alongside tennis players at the claycourt French Open tennis venue, Roland Garros, on the city’s western fringe, while the nearby clubs Paris Saint-Germain and Stade Francais will host respective sports of football and rugby.
Distance races on foot and bicycle will start and finish at the Eiffel Tower, in whose shadow the popular beach volleyball competition will play out.
Fencing and taekwondo will be held under the Grand Palais near the Champs Elysees, and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has staked her reputation on the Seine river being clean enough for open water swimming in time for the games.
Official confirmation due in September would mean one of the world’s most visited cities can mark the centenary of the 1924 Paris Olympics with a repeat showing.
Among the stars of those games was US swimming gold medallist Johnny Weismuller, who later became known for his role in the Tarzan films.
Paris 2024 plans to make the most of the city’s existing sports facilities and take full advantage of its landmarks