Tony Estanguet had promised “Games for all”. By presenting Paris’s candidacy for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016, the three-time Olympic canoe champion outlined the outlines of a popular event, which would benefit the suburbs as much as the capital, relying on the transport network Parisians and the numerous existing facilities. A few months before the opening ceremony, a look back at several decisions which have partly damaged this image.
This is a unique device in the history of the modern Olympic Games. While the ceremonies traditionally take place within a stadium, the opening of the Paris 2024 Games should be held in the heart of the city, on a 6.3 kilometer route along the Seine. When the project was announced at the end of 2021, the gauge was set at 600,000 spectators, without specifying the share of paid seats.
The initial hosting ambitions of the organizing committee were revised downwards several times due to the serious security difficulties posed by such an extensive and open system, in the middle of the city. Which gave rise to numerous meetings and negotiations between the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop), Paris City Hall and state services. In September 2022, the number of paying spectators on the low platforms was announced: around 100,000, with prices ranging from 90 euros to 2,700 euros, while the high platforms could accommodate between 400,000 and 500,000 spectators free of charge.
In May, the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games Amélie Oudéa-Castéra announced a first reduction in the gauge, with “around 400,000” free places. A sizing more in line with the capacity of public transport to handle such an influx.
In the fall, discussions resulted in reducing this figure to 300,000 free places, before finally being set at the end of January at 222,000 by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The gauge, including the 104,000 paying spectators, should thus be 326,000 spectators, almost half as much as what the president of Cojop, Tony Estanguet, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, initially defended.
Gérald Darmanin also clarified that the free places would ultimately not be accessible to all through the ticket office, but that they would be allocated by the State, public authorities and the organizing committee. The selection criteria that these “trusted third parties” will operate are not yet known but they could clearly favor Parisian and Ile-de-France residents, which would complicate access to spectators from other regions or abroad.
The ceremony, which was to begin at 8:24 p.m., was also brought forward to 7:30 p.m., in particular to facilitate the return of spectators by public transport.
Touted as one of the strong points of the Parisian candidacy in 2016, the public transport network was to be enriched with six new metro and RER lines or extensions to accommodate the ten to fifteen million spectators planned and serve the sites Olympics.
Finally, four new lines were postponed and an extension will only be partially put into service for the Games:
Only the extension of line 14 northwards, to Saint-Denis Pleyel, and southwards to Orly, should enter service as planned before the Olympic Games. It will facilitate access to the Olympic Village and travelers arriving from the airport.
This was one of the big promises of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games: free public transport for ticket holders on the day of the competition. This commitment appears in the 2016 application file and has been reiterated in subsequent years. Tony Estanguet notably reaffirmed this at the end of 2019 in Le Parisien, as well as in the Senate in March 2021.
Additional costs linked to inflation have forced organizers to make savings. In December 2022, a budgetary revision intended to correct the budget for the Games confirmed the abandonment of free public transport, which, Cojop estimates, would have cost around 45 million euros.
A year later, the situation was even reversed, since the president of Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), Valérie Pécresse, announced that prices would be higher during the Games period (July 20-September 8 ). A decision that the president (Les Républicains) of the region justifies by the need to finance the strengthening of the public transport offer: “There is no question of Ile-de-France residents paying this cost. »
The application submitted in 2016 provided for the creation of an Olympic Aquatic Center (AOC) to host all swimming, water polo, synchronized swimming and diving events, with a capacity of 15,000 to 17 000 spectators. But soaring construction prices quickly undermined these ambitions. Estimated at 111.2 million euros in 2016 (90 million for the aquatic center, 21.2 million for its access walkway), this cost was reassessed in March 2018 at a sum which “could exceed 260 million euros” by the General Inspectorate of Public Finances.
To reduce this significant additional cost, the organizers decided in 2020 to reduce the dimensions of the Olympic aquatic center. From 17,000 places, its capacity was reduced to 5,300 places, which lowered the cost to 174.7 million euros.
But dividing the audience size by three no longer made it possible to meet the requirements of the international swimming federation. The organizers were therefore forced to move part of the aquatic events to the Défense Arena, which will host sports swimming and the water polo final phases in several temporary Olympic pools in front of 17,000 spectators. The Olympic Aquatics Center will house three disciplines: synchronized swimming, water polo and diving.
Initially, the shooting events were to be held in La Courneuve, in Seine-Saint-Denis, in a brand new demountable shooting center, installed on a former military site having been used to supply the army with hydrocarbons. Work to clean up the site, financed to the tune of 12 million euros, began in December 2021. But a visit by the organizing committee raised a major problem: the thirteen hectares of the site seemed insufficient to accommodate the expected spectators . The organizers tried to negotiate the removal of a trap shooting track, an option refused by the international shooting federation. The Cojop considered expanding the footprint but abandoned this path, the Georges-Valbon departmental park to which the coveted land belongs being classified Natura 2000.
Cojop decided in July 2022 to move the events to Châteauroux, in Indre, after intense lobbying from the city, at the expense of Seine-Saint-Denis, which had already lost the swimming events. The events will take place within the national sports shooting center, inaugurated in 2018. The rest did not go smoothly: after announcing their choice, the organizers had made strong demands on the city’s hotel capacities, before cancel a large part of their reservations at the end of 2023 – a “cold shower” for Castelroussin hoteliers. The town hall also canceled the establishment of a “fan zone” in the city center, for financial reasons.
In La Courneuve, the Terrain des essences was decontaminated and revegetated. It will host the start of the Paralympic marathon and will eventually include a protected portion for flora and fauna and a skatepark.
Several events are expected to take place in the Seine during the Olympics, including the open water marathon (10 km) and the triathlon (1.5 km). But doubts persist about the swimmability of the Seine at the time of these events, despite the years of construction and the 1.4 billion euros spent to clean up the river. In August 2023, the acceptable bacterial pollution threshold was exceeded after very heavy rains and then the failure of a valve. The open water swimming and triathlon test events were then canceled.
The City and Cojop say they are confident about the level of cleanliness expected in August, arguing that the river depollution system was not, in August 2023, fully put into service: several important works, including the water basin ‘Austerlitz, should complete the system in spring to limit the risks in the event of heavy rain.
But authorities have warned that these works will not prevent wastewater from overflowing and flowing into the river if precipitation is too heavy. In such a case, the organizers are considering postponing the swimming events by a few days, while the water quality is sufficient to guarantee the health of the athletes. This draft of plan B does not convince everyone: some athletes have recently expressed their concerns, such as Olympic champion Ana Marcela Cunha or world triathlon champion Dorian Coninx.
