Paris in countdown to the Olympics
PARIS (AP) — In 100 days as of Wednesday, the Paris Olympics will kick off with a wildly ambitious waterborne opening ceremony. But the first Games in a century in France’s capital will not be judged for spectacle alone. Another yardstick will be their impact on disadvantaged Paris suburbs, away from the city-center landmarks that are hosting much of the action.
By promising socially positive and also less polluting and less wasteful Olympics, the city synonymous with romance is also setting itself the high bar of making future Games generally more desirable.
Critics question their value for a world grappling with climate change and other emergencies. Potential host cities became so Gamesaverse that Paris and Los Angeles were the only remaining candidates in 2017 when the International Olympic Committee selected them for 2024 and 2028, respectively.
After scandals and the $13 billion cost of the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021, unfulfilled promises of beneficial change for host Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi tarnished by Russian doping and President Vladimir Putin’s subsequent land grabs in Ukraine, the Switzerland-based IOC has mountains of skepticism to dispel.
Virtuous Summer Games in Paris could help the long-term survival of the IOC’s megasized event.
The idea that the July 26-Aug. 11 Games and Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics should benefit disadvantaged communities in the Seine-Saint-Denis region northeast of Paris was built from the outset into the city’s plans.
Seine-Saint-Denis is mainland France’s poorest region. Thanks to generations of immigration, it also is vibrantly diverse, counting 130 nationalities and more than 170 languages spoken by its 1.6 million inhabitants. For Seine-SaintDenis kids facing racial discrimination and other barriers, sports are sometimes a route out. World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe honed his silky soccer skills as a boy in the Seine-Saint-Denis town of Bondy.
Once heavily industrialized, Seine-Saint-Denis became grim and scary in parts after many jobs were lost. Rioting rocked its streets in 2005 and again last year. Members of an Islamic extremist cell that killed 130 people in the French capital in 2015 hid after the carnage in an apartment in the town of Saint-Denis and were killed in a shootout with heavily armed SWAT teams. That drama unfolded just a 15-minute walk from the Olympic stadium that will host track and field and rugby and the closing ceremonies.
Concretely, the Games will leave a legacy of new and refurbished sports infrastructure in SeineSaint-Denis, although critics say the investment still is not enough to catch it up with better-equipped, more prosperous regions.
At close to 9 billion euros ($9.7 billion), more than half from sponsors, ticket sales and other nonpublic funding, Paris’ expenses so far are less than for the last three Summer Games in Tokyo, Rio and London in 2012.
Including policing and transport costs, the portion of the bill for French taxpayers is likely to be around 3 billion euros, France’s body for auditing public funds said in its most recent study in July.
Security remains a challenge for the city repeatedly hit by deadly extremist violence. The government downsized ambitions to have 600,000 people lining the River Seine for the opening ceremony. Citing the risk of attacks, it shelved a promise that anyone could apply for hundreds of thousands of free tickets. Instead, the 326,000 spectators will either be paying ticketholders or have been invited.
Privacy advocates are critical of video surveillance technology being deployed to spot security threats. Campaigners for the homeless are concerned that they will be swept off the streets. Many Parisians plan to leave, to avoid the disruptions or to rent their homes to the expected 15 million visitors. With trade unions pushing for Olympic bonuses, strikes are also possible.
And all this against an inflammable backdrop of geopolitical crises including but not limited to the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a consequence, the IOC is not allowing athletes from Russia and ally Belarus to parade with other Olympians at the opening ceremony.