The countdown begins. The next Olympic Games must take place in exactly 500 days in Paris. This Tuesday, March 14, Emmanuel Macron will receive partner companies for lunch at the Elysée Palace and then meet with Tony Estanguet, head of the organizing committee as well as with Thomas Jolly, artistic director, of the opening ceremony which will take place. unpublished announcement with a parade on the Seine. Accompanied by the Ministers of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, he will then meet half a thousand officials involved in the organization of the Games at 4:30 p.m. at the Paris prefecture.
Several projects are still in progress. L’Express takes stock of this event which will cost a total of nearly 3 billion euros, according to the Court of Auditors.
Work program nearing completion
Out of a total of 64 projects, 46 sites are underway, mobilizing 5,400 people, including 3,000 for the athletes’ village, the centerpiece of 52 hectares of the “heritage” component of Paris 2024. This new district near Saint-Denis, which will be able to accommodate 6,000 inhabitants and 6,000 employees, took shape with the opening on February 1 of a residence for students, which will serve as accommodation for the athletes during the Games.
“The Olympic village with all that entails, the bridge over the Seine, the burial of the high voltage lines, all the buildings to house the athletes, will be delivered at the end of the year. The same for the journalists’ village We are within the deadlines that we had given ourselves in 2018”, explained to France Bleu Paris Nicolas Ferrand, the director of Solidéo, the delivery company of the Olympic works.
By the end of 2023, 90% of the works needed for the Games will be ready, according to the latter. On the other hand, the Porte de la Chapelle Arena poses a problem in terms of deadlines. “We thought we would deliver it in September. The entire steel industry was completely destabilized with the war in Ukraine,” says Nicolas Ferrand. On franceinfo this Tuesday, Tony Estanguet gave a new deadline, March 2024, while confident that he was not worried.
The different sites of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
© / AFP
The transportation puzzle
On paper, everything was planned: trains, buses and trams should not pose a problem for the Paris Games. But the lack of drivers and the current problems of Parisian public transport are worrying, especially since the promised metros will not all be ready.
“We will do everything to be there,” promised Jean Castex, former Prime Minister and current CEO of RATP, announcing thousands of hires. “We are going to have to transport in the middle of August what we usually transport on a peak day”, for her part exposed Valérie Pécresse, the president of the regional transport authority Ile-de-France Mobilités. In total, 9 to 10 million people are expected at 25 Olympic sites, mostly concentrated in Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis. An application to balance the flow of travelers between the lines is being developed, while Valérie Pécresse is still waiting for the additional 200 million euros from the State to complete its budget.
Another source of concern: the risks of saturation during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine on July 26, 2024, “a crossover Friday evening” with 600,000 spectators to be transported in addition to holidaymakers en route to the Parisian stations. “The capacity would be insufficient and it would be dangerous,” warned the regional president. Laurent Probst, managing director of IDFM, claimed less than 500,000 spectators, “otherwise we will not be able to manage”. The reassessment of the gauge is “under study”, he said.
JO-2024 in Paris: transport 10 million spectators to Ile-de-France
© / afp.com/Sabrina BLANCHARD
The issue of security
If the opening ceremony worries, it is also for its security component. On July 26, 2024 at 8:24 p.m. sharp, more than a hundred boats loaded with delegations of athletes will descend the Seine, from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Eiffel Tower. To this flotilla will be added “twenty” ships dedicated to security and others reserved for the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (Cojo) for shows or to tow those who break down. In total, the fleet could reach 150 boats, according to a senior official.
The services of the Paris police prefecture (PP) “have never worked on scenarios like this before,” notes a high-ranking police officer to AFP. “When it’s repetitive, they can debrief, improve, perpetuate what has worked. There, it will be a one shot”. For the opening ceremony alone, Gérald Darmanin plans to mobilize “35,000 police and gendarmes”. The minister is counting on an average of 30,000 members of the police force on average per day during the duration of the Games, from July 26 to August 11.
It also figures at 25,000 the need for private security agents to secure the competition sites, responsibility of the Cojo. At the end of February, only 3,000 of these agents had been hired and 1,800 were in training, according to the prefecture of the Ile-de-France region. But the calls for tenders launched by the Cojo were “mostly unsuccessful”, confides a source familiar with the matter, the companies in the sector considering the prices too low.
The General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) and all the other intelligence services will also be fully mobilized, given the very high threats surrounding all world events such as the Olympics.