The place was intended to be symbolic. The casting as well. Less than 1.000 days before the opening of the Paris 2024 Games, the French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, gathered on Monday November 15 in Seine-Saint-Denis, in the Plaine des sports du Bourget, the second interministerial committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympics. Then he took the road to the future aquatic center, located not far from the Stade de France, to symbolically lay the first stone.
Everything but a coincidence: this second interministerial committee was held just three days after the adoption by the deputies, within the framework of the 2022 finance law, of the State guarantee in the event of a deficit of the organizing committee of the Paris 2024 Games.
The message is clear: with less than three years to go, the government is getting into battle gear. The presence on Monday, November 15 of around ten ministers, including Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, says a lot about the importance of the subject and the issues at stake. “ We will not have the right to make mistakes, we will have to be there“insisted Jean Castex.
How ? By casting a wide net. Very large. In 2019, the French government announced a series of 170 measures intended to meet two major challenges: delivering the Games on time and on budget, and seizing the opportunity to leave a lasting social legacy. Monday November 15, Jean Castex unveiled a new batch. They will be implemented by 2024, in order to promote the successful delivery of the Games and strengthen its social legacy.
– Creation of training dedicated to Games security in order to compensate for the lack of agents from the public forces.
– Generalization of “30 minutes of physical and sporting activity” at school, in all elementary level classes, i.e. nearly 36.000 schools.
– Development of health sports, with a specific system for overweight or obese children aged 3 to 8, which could be extended to adolescents up to 12 years old.
– Development of cycle paths in order to connect all the Olympic and Paralympic sites together, with a budget of 10 million euros to support the local authorities concerned (48 km of sections are currently missing on the 420 km of routes Olympics).
– 1000 Parisian taxis accessible by 2024 for people in wheelchairs (there are currently 300 of them).
– Priority to financing sports equipment.
– Provision of an envelope of 11 million euros for the Ministry of Culture for the Cultural Olympiads. They will be launched next year, with a first grant of €2 million in 2022, then a budget of €9 million for the period 2022-2024.
Sports practice, sport-health, safety, accessibility, culture, equipment… The government is thinking big and broad. Jean Castex wants Games “ copies", able to reconcile " sobriety and ambition"
There remains one question, obviously very media-rich: the opening ceremony. Emmanuel Macron, the President of the Republic, took the lead by first announcing last summer, as a form of evidence, that it would leave the stadium and take place in the heart of Paris. Since then, state services have been looking into the matter. Unsurprisingly, it turns out to be extremely complex, particularly in terms of security.
Cautious, the representatives of the Prefecture are pushing for a capacity of 250.000 people, the most reasonable in their eyes to ensure the safety of the public, athletes and officials. But Paris City Hall is instead planning, for its part, a celebration that is as open and accessible as possible, with at least a million people gathered along the Seine.
Jean Castex explained on Monday, November 15, at the end of the interministerial committee, that he had asked the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to “ make proposals with a timetable at the end of 2021 for the opening ceremony, no later than June 2022 for all sites. » No time to waste, then.
As for Tony Estanguet, the president of the COJO Paris 2024, he pointedly underlined December 13, 2021, the date of the next board of directors of the organizing committee, to definitively settle the question. In short, moving forward fully on the concept of an opening ceremony of a unique kind at the Olympic Games, in the heart of the capital. Or give it up for good and move on.
