Paris 2024: what Olympic legacy will be left by the Games?

Will Paris be ready for the Olympic Games? As it has been known since 2021 at least the Grand Paris Express will not be finished for the Olympics, as promised by President Macron, but the facilities required for the events are or will very soon be ready, even if some events, such as those planned to take place in the Seine, are still the subject of controversy.

The biggest doubts and debates relate to issues that are closely connected to the day-to-day lives of the people of Île-de-France.

Will people still be able to travel, and at what price, in a city overrun by tourists? Will everyday life by the Seine be affected? Will the risk of petty crime and terrorism create chaos and threaten democracy? And what about the hospitality sector (700 000 rooms in Paris), price rises in services and restaurants, air transport and its carbon footprint, questionable profits made by those renting out accommodation on Airbnb (145,000 accommodation offers published online compared with the usual 65,000, students given formal notice requiring them to vacate their rooms ?

The issue is not so much the preparation for but the impact of the Olympics: in the short term - during the event and its impact on everyday life - but also in the long term. The facilities used or built for the Olympics, if they don’t end up as drab « white elephants » that nobody knows what to do with, could last decades, while Paris 2024 could be the event that marks the start of a new era, like with the renewal of Barcelona in 1992 when the city was revived after a period of stagnation forced upon it by the Franco regime.

The legacy-based approach

All this calls for a new approach, based on legacy, which plays an increasingly prominent role in a discourse of legitimacy that is desired, even promoted, by the Olympic authorities in order to justify the event.

The notion of an Olympic legacy first appeared in 1965 at the Melbourne Games, but its definition has evolved over time and remains very broad, if not vague. In 2017, a document by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stated:

« Olympic legacy is the result of a vision. It encompasses all the tangible and intangible long-term benefits initiated or accelerated by the hosting of the Olympic Games/sport events for people, cities/territories and the Olympic Movement. »

Recently, the approach has been made clearer through a strong connection between the Sustainable Development Goals and legacy, which led the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to break away from the single site principle (as part of the “Olympic Agenda 2020” in 2014) and actively promote the “maximum use of existing facilities and the use of temporary and demountable venues”. This is the case in Paris, where 95% of the permanent facilities used for the Games already existed.

All applications now contain two important sections on the environment and legacy, and they most often try to combine the two.

An opportunity for transforming the outskirts

In a similar spirit to Barcelona, Paris and London (2012) go even further, using the Olympic facilities to transform the city outskirts (more than the city centre). In Paris, this corresponds to the Petite Couronne, the outer ring of suburbs that was once the Ceinture Rouge (Red Belt).

However, Paris is not completely immune to the vagueness of the definition of tangible and intangible heritage, and different organisations each have their own, an issue that could be a source of conflict. Despite this, there is a certain consensus around the objective of development (economic, social, urban and environmental) in the host areas. This mainly concerns Seine Saint-Denis, which is the poorest département in France, with 26.7% of the population living below the poverty line. The Arena at Porte de la Chapelle in Paris, built for the occasion, also aims to meet the objective of restructuring and socially transforming its neighbourhood.

Over the last 40 years or so, the north of the Paris conurbation, which was once the industrial powerhouse of Paris (at least) has experienced major change and social crisis as a result of its deindustrialisation.

Elected representatives, in varying degrees of cooperation with the State, have endeavoured to develop strategies based on the tertiary sector and activities that were still new in the late 20th century, such as the image industry with, for example a film school inaugurated in 2012 in a building that is now part of the Olympic Village.

The political commitment to hosting Olympic facilities among many elected representatives is part of this long-term effort to give a new future to an area in danger of decline.

Saint-Denis-Pleyel train station has been designed as a Parisian transport hub at least as important as Châtelet-Les-Halles, and on 10 June a luxury hotel will open in Tour Pleyel, along with a conference and entertainment centre.

Developing sports activities

A new central urban space is being built, but the project doesn’t concern the whole of Seine-Saint-Denis, of which certain areas remain deprived, notably because they have benefited less from past major projects and the distribution of Olympic facilities (some areas have none at all).

This has led to the emergence of markedly more socially focused action, such as policies to promote swimming: after noting that a considerable proportion of pupils aged 11-12 can’t swim (60 % or more depending on whether the data is taken at the start or end of the year), local authorities have decided to increase access to swimming facilities.

In concrete terms, new training pools have been created for the games: in Seine-Saint-Denis 18 have been built or renovated (including competition pools).

Other Olympic sites, in Île-de-France and elsewhere, have adopted a more traditional approach to heritage by ensuring that facilities that have been renovated or extended, such as the Yves-du-Manoir and Roland-Garros stadiums, the Marseille marina, etc., host as many events as possible and contribute as much as possible to the development of sport.

And for the residents of Île-de-France?

What does the future hold? The non-arrival of the Grand Paris Express which was intended to serve isolated areas and would have helped include them in the social-development dynamic of the games, is a bad omen.

However, the enthusiasm is there and the hopes are high, albeit tinged with concerns about the future of the most vulnerable communities.

What is the way forward? In London, a unique organisation was set up, the London Legacy Corporation to manage the legacy of the Games. It is in charge of financing and carrying out urban projects based in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford in the traditionally poor areas of East London.

In Paris, as things stand, everything will depend on the interaction between the local authorities and the State. Will we see a major player like the Greater Paris Metropolis take the lead? Will the State take matters in hand? Will a consensus be established, or will everyone go back to running things as before, as if nothing had happened?

Whatever the case, as in Barcelona, the Olympics have the potential to mark the start of a new era for the Paris region. The adventure, a long-term one, is only just beginning.