Like all good things, the Paris Games have come to an end. Now, a new kind of race, at the end of which no medals will be awarded, has been launched: the one to make the city (almost) as it was before. And with the aim of throwing away as little as possible. The great dismantling has begun.
5 min
Paris 2024it’s over, but the city has not yet fully recovered. While the capital has resumed its frenetic pace, rediscovered its crowded metros and its pedestrians in a hurry for the start of the school year, the Games sites are playing overtime. If we are still wondering how to preserve the basin of the Tuileries garden or the rings of the Eiffel Tower, the scattered structures, gradually dismantled, still bear witness, like fading scars, to the gentle sporting madness that were these Games made in France.
On this Friday, September 13, 2024, between the Eiffel Tower stadium and the Arena Champ-de-Mars, five days after the start of the great dismantling, workers are busy everywhere. Some of the seats in the stands have disappeared, while on the ground, cables and screws lie, the first corpses of the heavy. Augustin Nechad lets out a hint of nostalgia.
” It’s sure that there is a pang in the heart. It’s a lot of emotions, memories, there is a lot of energy in this stadium.says the site director for the Organizing Committee. Afterwards, we knew that it was the contract from the start, to make a temporary site, because there was no need in the territory. It is also good to say that we have done something exceptional, but also that it is not useless for the future. »
Also read2024 Olympics: two RFI journalists talk about their Olympic and Paralympic Games
Beach volleyball sand and blind football pitches have found takers
The future, precisely, what will it look like for all these objects, from the parasols of the refreshment stands to the stands of the two Games sites, watched over by the Iron Lady, which saw 800,000 spectators pass through, Olympic and Paralympic Games combined? For the most symbolic and the most requested, the path is already mapped out.
The synthetic lawn trampled by The Blues of blind football during their immense feat ended up being cut up, rolled up, before being redistributed to a club from the Paris region and another from the Strasbourg region.
As for the 2,000 tons of sand trampled by beach volleyball, they will be redistributed to clubs in Seine-Saint-Denis. Moreover, this desire to reuse as many materials as possible complicates operations.
” Synthetic grass rolls are spray-marked for redistributing and repositioningnotes Augustin Nechad. We dismantle in a very methodical way. It’s a task that doesn’t have to be done if we throw it all in the dumpster. “, he emphasizes.
There are three main phases in the dismantling of the temporary structures of Paris 2024. First, the premises are cleared of all the teams working there and their equipment. Then comes the ” bump-out “, which consists of removing “ all that falls if you return the site “, summarizes Augustin Nechad, that is to say all the furniture. Finally comes the dismantling of the structures, mainly composed of stands.
Currently the bump-out is progressing well, while the dismantling is beginning, around the Eiffel Tower. Most of the other sites that do not have any particular complications, such as the Palace of Versailles where the earthworks to make the site flatter must be done in reverse, are at about the same stage. Or even more advanced, like the Grand Palais, which will be operational on October 1st for the Chanel fashion show as part of Fashion Week. As for the Champ-de-Mars, the aim is to hand over the keys to the Paris City Hall on October 31st, watch in hand.
Also readThe fervour of the Olympic and Paralympic Games boosts the desire to do sport in France
Much work remains to be done on redistribution and sales
Everything must go! The how remains a crucial question. For a good part of the objects and equipment recovered, the Organizing Committee is still weighing up the different solutions, the different actors candidates for donations and the companies or communities for a purchase. Moreover, you may find your happiness yourself in the various Olympic sales planned throughout France.
In the meantime, Wagner Covos, director of logistics operations for the Paris Games at CMA CGM, details the instructions: a transfer to the warehouses ” of 25 000 tons of materials, out of 100 000m2 storage spaces, for 26 000 pallets “A real logistical challenge for the Games, which are spread between Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux and Marseille, via Tahiti. Compared to other editions of the Games, such as Rio, there is a complexity of urban logistics.explains Wagner Covos. In Rio, for example, it was as if 80% of the Olympic sites were at Porte de Versailles. Here, there is complexity. »
Harder to dismantle than to assemble, then? To go up, we had a goal of July 26. The pressure is different. But we also have dates to deliver, so the pressure is also hard “, smiles the CMA CGM executive. Another challenge: waste treatment, inevitable on construction sites of this scale, even though the Paris 2024 legacy has seen things on a grand scale for the second life of its sites. The logistics company assures that it will recycle 80% of the waste it inherits in its warehouses, without giving further details. If in the pile, they find one of the 139 medals won by French athletes during the Games, it should be part of this 80% that will not go to the dump.
Also read2024 Paralympic Medal Table