Promises only bind those who believe them. In terms of budget, the organizers of Paris 2024 risk being disappointed. In September 2017, during the last grand oral in front of the hundred IOC members gathered in Lima, Tony Estanguet and the entire French Olympic team showed a trump card: money. No more excess and financial mismanagement. Paris 2024 would be the most virtuous, greenest and above all the most economical Olympics of the last forty years, they promised. At the time, this commitment appealed to the IOC, still in shock from the splendor of the Sochi Winter Games in Russia, in 2015, where the bill had reached the astronomical sum of 37 billion euros. Never seen.
To wrap things up, the organizers of Paris 2024 then draw out a solid gold argument: 95% of the sports equipment used for the competitions already exists. Or because the stadiums where the events will take place are already built, like the Stade de France. Or because certain competitions will take place in iconic locations transformed for the occasion, such as the Grand Palais. The rest will be held in temporary facilities dismantled after the Games. No risk of having to build – and therefore finance – “white elephants”, these brand new equipment which cost billions in Athens or Rio before being abandoned after the Games, and which the inhabitants paid for for decades thereafter.
Sobriety has been hammered for years by all the stakeholders of Paris 2024, from Cojop to Paris City Hall, the Ile-de-France Region and the State. However, the total budget for the Games, initially planned at 6.3 billion euros, has slipped since the submission of the candidacy file to reach today nearly 8.8 billion euros. Blame it on inflation which has increased all construction costs, respond the organizers who remain firm in their boots. A budgetary doctrine embodied in one sentence, repeated over and over again: “The Games finance the Games”.
A budget in two parts
This refrain annoys a lot of people close to the Olympic movement. “Systematically maintaining ambiguity about the real cost of the event by only talking about the Games stricto sensu is not likely to reassure the French and convince the most skeptical. Would it not be more honest to simply say that the total budget for the Games is made up of two parts?”, storms Armand de Rendinger, an old veteran of the Olympism, at the heart of the Paris 2012 candidacy.
Two parts ? The first envelope, that of Cojop (4.4 billion) is dedicated to the simple organization of the Games: the first third of this sum comes from the IOC, the second from ticketing and the third from sponsors. And then, there is the construction and renovation part of the installations – there are still 70 of them – grouped together in the budget of Solideo, the structure in charge of the Olympic works. According to the latest financial roadmap dated July 19, 2023 that L’Express was able to consult, we can read that the State has supplemented Solideo’s accounts by nearly 1.3 billion euros. Paris City Hall put in almost 170 million, as did the Ile-de-France region, the Seine-Saint-Denis department 85 million, Plaine Commune Grand Paris 44.3 million, the Métropole du Grand Paris. 24.7 million, the city of Marseille – where the sailing events will take place – 23.3 million… Public money therefore.
But by only dissecting the expenses of Cojop and Solideo, we miss part of the story. Because there is what is included in the Games budget… and what is not. Expenses covered directly by the State or by local authorities, and which do not appear in the official invoice for the event. First example: security. In the Cojop budget, this budget line reaches the modest sum of 207 million euros. These are private security providers, responsible for screening spectators or pat-downs. All security expenses outside the sports venues, and in particular during the opening ceremony, will be provided by the State. Thousands of police officers, gendarmes and perhaps soldiers recalled at the last moment, on whom the administration requires not to take leave during the summer and who will be fully mobilized for a little over a month. To make things easier, exceptional bonuses should be paid to agents and negotiations are underway. An envelope of 500 million euros could be released… An expense well linked to the Olympics but which does not appear in the budget.
Another example is the construction site of the new Arena, Porte de la Chapelle, in Paris. For years, the town hall had been planning the construction of a new sports arena. In 2018, Anne Hidalgo imagines building this new 9,000-seat venue in Bercy Park, next to the Accor Arena. The project was quickly relocated to the north of the capital, as part of the renovation of the disadvantaged Porte de la Chapelle district. The prospect of the Games makes it change in size: there will indeed be a large hall, but to which will be attached two gymnasiums and meeting rooms intended for local associations. A cost – 98 million euros – divided in two, equally, between Solideo and the City of Paris.
In the name of the legacy of the Games, part of the bill for the Olympic projects will therefore be covered by communities, outside of the Solideo budget. This is also the case for the work necessary for the renovation of the Grand Palais, which will host the fencing and taekwondo events: 450 million euros, of which only 15 million will be the responsibility of Solideo. Taken together, all these off-budget expenditures could well increase the real budget for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games to more than… 10 billion euros, or even 11 billion, with a significant share of public money. Moral of the story: taxpayers will pay, one way or another, for part of next summer’s big party.
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