Solely 37 p.c of French folks say they’re trying ahead to the 2024 Olympics with “lots” or “some eagerness”, in response to a Viavoice ballot revealed on 25 March. Paris – and different French cities, together with Marseille – might be internet hosting the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics between 26 July and eight September.
What explains this lack of enthusiasm?
It’s necessary to recall that the candidature of Paris was accepted in 2017 after the opposite cities in rivalry (Budapest, Boston, Rome) had withdrawn, partially as a result of low assist of the inhabitants following referendums or standard consultations. No session passed off within the French capital. Sports activities sociologist Michel Koebel discusses this in a lecture. The consent of the inhabitants, in addition to how it’s measured – a ballot? From what sort of pattern? With which questions? – is a central subject, Andreas Rüttenauer reminds us in his evaluation for the tageszeitung in view of Munich’s candidature for 2036.
The French authorities’s promise was to make Paris 2024 the “folks’s Olympics and Paralympics”. How? There was discuss of accessibility and affordability, provided that the sports activities amenities exist already for essentially the most half. Angélique Chrisafis remembers within the Guardian that the town already has 95 p.c of the mandatory amenities and doesn’t should construct a stadium, as London did in 2021, and that Paris is already one of many world’s prime vacationer locations. As well as, the territory chosen for the Video games is meant to learn from the occasion.
Seine-Saint-Denis
Many of the amenities devoted to the Olympics are in truth situated within the Seine-Saint-Denis département, the poorest in France (excluding “abroad” territories): 27.6 per cent of the inhabitants (1.6 million folks) dwell under the poverty line, in response to the most recent Inequality Observatory Report.
Seine-Saint-Denis holds a number of sad data, explains Louise Couvelaire in Le Monde: there’s much less of all the things (fewer lecturers, magistrates, docs, law enforcement officials); it’s the youngest division (42 per cent of the inhabitants are underneath 30), and it has the very best crime charge and the bottom variety of graduates. It is usually, paradoxically, essentially the most economically dynamic division, attributable to a number of the largest French corporations having moved right here (Veolia, Vinci, BNP Paribas, SFR, Charles de Gaulle airport…), despite the fact that the inhabitants doesn’t get to take pleasure in a lot of this wealth. For instance, 70 p.c of the executives working within the division dwell elsewhere.
Angélique Chrisafis reminds us within the Guardian that two main works underneath development, the Olympic Village and the Aquatic Centre, will stay in use for the division as soon as the Olympics are over: a part of the Village might be was social housing and half bought to non-public people. The issue? The extravagant worth per sq. metre – 7,000 euro – in an space the place the common price is round 4,000, towards the Parisian common of 10,000. The swimming pools might be left to the division, which is structurally poor in swimming swimming pools, and half of the kids round 10 years previous can not swim.
A number of initiatives have sprung up in defence of the inexperienced areas of Seine-Saint-Denis, which have been completely or partially destroyed to make room for the Olympic amenities, together with the employees’ gardens of Aubervilliers. Journalist Jade Lindgaard, writer of Paris 2024 , une ville face à la violence olympique (Divergences, 2024), experiences in Arrêt sur Pictures.
The query of costs: tickets, lodging, transport
Essentially the most telling instance is the ticket costs for the athletics finals on the Stade de France: 85 euro for the most cost effective and furthest away, 195 euro for mid-range tickets, and the remaining between 385 and 690 euro, as Mathias Thépot experiences in Mediapart: ‘With few exceptions, holders of the most cost effective tickets will solely have entry to the qualifying competitions – that are much less attention-grabbing – and to seats which are typically poorly situated in stadiums or competitions removed from Paris.
What about the price of lodging for spectators? Aurélie Lebelle experiences in Le Parisien that the value of a double room in a resort with breakfast has quadrupled on common. In line with Sud-Ouest, the common worth for an evening in Airbnb lodging is 619 euro.
Mathias Thépot explains that public transport in Paris was presupposed to have been free – as declared by the president of the Video games’ organising committee, Tony Estanguet in 2021 – for ticket holders. This was the case in London in 2012. Now it seems that costs will in truth improve from 2.15 to 4 euro between 20 July and eight September, as Damien Dole explains in Libération. The official justification for this improve is to cowl a 15 p.c improve in site visitors.
That’s simply capitalism, you may say.
“Social cleaning”
Essentially the most problematic and painful subject is that of inhabitants displacement, as Michael McDougall remembers in a Washington Submit in an article from 2021 titled “The Olympics is a catastrophe for individuals who dwell in host cities, displacement and gentrification are the norm for getting ready for the Video games”.
In Paris, 80 associations and NGOs, united within the collective ‘Le Revers de la médaille’ (The Different Aspect of the Medal) denounce the displacements of populations thought-about “undesirable”: migrants, homeless folks, intercourse employees. “The Olympics come and go. The expertise of those mega sports activities occasions all over the world results in the identical spectacle: systematic social cleaning,’ experiences L’Humanité.
At Mediapart, Faïza Zerouala explains that “The Schaeffer collective has calculated that greater than 4,000 folks from African international locations have been displaced from squats and halls in Seine-Saint-Denis.” Libération experiences on the mayor of Orléans who condemns the displacement of round “500 homeless folks” from Paris within the final 12 months.
Along with all this, there are additionally college students, some 2,000, who’ve been requested to go away their residences at some stage in the Video games. This has led the workplace of the Defender of Rights, the French ombudsman, to open an investigation.
After which there are the roughly 300 households who inhabit the neighbourhoods destroyed to make room for the Olympic Village on the ile Saint-Denis. These households have been relocated, however typically too removed from their earlier place of residence or work. Reuters additionally experiences on the eviction of Roma from a constructing that they had occupied within the Ile Saint-Denis.
Jules Boykoff, professor of political science at Pacific College (Oregon, USA), and writer of “What Are the Olympics For” (Bristol College Press, 2024), explains to Mediapart: “The Olympics are a machine that amplifies inequalities. […] There are some clear developments […]. For the Seoul Video games in 1988, greater than 700,000 folks have been displaced. The identical occurred in Beijing in 2008, with greater than 1 million folks displaced”.
Whereas there are various teams, associations and initiatives protesting these phenomena (Extinction Riot, Youth for Planet, Saccage 2024…), their voices usually are not being given widespread media consideration, explains Sylvia Zappi in Le Monde.
And the prices?
The preliminary funds of 6.8 billion euro first rose to over 9 billion euro, earlier than reaching 11 billion, in response to the consultancy agency Asterès. One other associated controversy is the remuneration of Tony Estanguet, president of the Committee: 270,000 euros per 12 months, which has led the monetary prosecutor’s workplace to open an investigation. Nonetheless, as Sylvain Bersinger, economist at Asterès tells us in La Tribune, the Video games of 2024 “has had a restricted price in comparison with earlier Olympic Video games”.
Non-public sponsors cowl a big a part of the funds. They embody EDF, Orange, Accor, Carrefour, BPCE, Sanofi and LVMH. The luxurious items group of Bernard Arnault, “the richest man on the earth”, has put up 150 million euro.
