“We’re not going to be ready.” The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo showed her concern, a few months before the Olympic Games which will be held in Paris from July 26, 2024. The global event has the effect of a machine launched at full speed, while the The capital still faces numerous health and logistical problems. Questioned in TMC’s Quotidien show on Wednesday, November 22, the socialist mayor of Paris mentioned “two things for which we are not going to be ready”, namely “transport” and “sheltering homeless people ” fixed. “We are still in difficulty, already, in daily transport, and we cannot manage to catch up with the level (…) of punctuality, of comfort for Parisians,” noted Anne Hidalgo. A huge question mark in the organization of the Olympics. What is she talking about ?
When questioned, the mayor mentioned the future RER E Porte Maillot station. Under construction, the RER E must therefore cover 8 kilometers of new tracks before the sporting event, between Haussmann Saint-Lazare station (Paris 9th), its current terminus and Nanterre La Folie (Hauts-de-Seine). On the journey it will stop at the Neuilly-Porte Maillot and La Défense stations. Work which cannot therefore be completed, according to the mayor.
The northern extension of line 14, which is to serve the Stade de France, should be finished in June 2024. The redevelopment of the Gare du Nord, a gateway for international travelers, should be completed in April 2024 . A tight schedule. On the other hand, lines 15, 16 and 17 will not be ready. They are significantly behind schedule and will be under construction well after 2024. In a city where the public transport network is already saturated, the arrival of some 15 million spectators and accredited people for the Olympic events is a major problem, especially more than the organizers have “made a commitment that 100% of access to the competition sites can be done by public transport”, underlined Clément Beaune at the end of October. Nearly 15 million spectators and accredited people are expected to attend the events, the vast majority of which will take place in Paris and Île-de-France.
Concerning the “sheltering” of homeless people (SDF), many associations sounded the alarm at the end of October. For the squats and hostels of migrant workers, the Schaeffer collective estimates for AFP at 4,100 the number of nationals of African countries having been evacuated from Seine-Saint-Denis after the dismantling of their living space. Many of them now live on the banks of the Saint-Denis canal, according to the organizations that help them. Let us add to these “evacuees” the 1,600 people who have been transferred since April from the streets of Ile-de-France to accommodation “airlocks” in the regions. At the beginning of October, the authorities also banned food distributions in a working-class neighborhood in the north of Paris, a decision ultimately overturned by the courts.
Asked by Quotidien about the responsibility of the Île-de-France Region, which manages public transport, in these delays, Anne Hidalgo replied: “the government a little too”. “But we do all this together, so I feel concerned too,” she added. A comment which earned him a barrage of criticism from these political opponents. “We would have appreciated the presence of Anne Hidalgo on the mobility committees of the Olympic and Paralympic Games if she has proposals to make on transport,” tackled the president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse (LR ), on
