The government, the City of Paris and the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (JO) seem to have settled on a slightly more reasonable approach to the opening ceremony on the Seine than what their first statements had outlined. At least with regard to the size of the expected public, on July 26, 2024, near the river, on which the parade of athletes will take place. And particularly the number of spectators who will be able to attend for free on the high quays.
The gauge – to borrow the term officially used – “ will be around 400,000” people, according to the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the validation of this figure to occur “in the next few days”. Initially, the ambition for this nautical parade of delegations, imagined by the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, was to be able to bring together 500,000 spectators with free access to the high quays.
This confirmation of a downward revision of the gauge was made by Mr.me Oudéa-Castéra Tuesday, May 16, when she was questioned about the price of places for the Olympics, during a hearing before the finance committee of the National Assembly.
The minister put forward this figure to try to attenuate the scope of the criticisms concerning the prices of the places proposed by Paris 2024, among others those of the opening ceremony, which oscillate between 90 euros and 2,700 euros.
“Let’s not forget that it is only on the lower platforms that tickets are payable, up to 100,000 people”, argued M.me Oudéa-Castéra, insisting that the“Above all, there will be hundreds of thousands of people who will attend this opening ceremony free of charge”.
The warning from Ile-de-France Mobilités
It had already been several weeks since the initial objective of bringing together 600,000 spectators in total for the opening ceremony was no longer so intangible. “We don’t have an absolute goal. We don’t have a totem number. It’s not absolutely 600,000”had thus declared, on March 14, Tony Estanguet, the president of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop), at the microphone of FranceInfo.
The prospect of having to manage such an influx of people on the docks had given rise to multiple warnings. Both from security managers, but also from transport managers.
The president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse (LR), had thus argued that the transport capacity would be “insufficient” with a gauge of 600,000 people, while this opening ceremony day will result in “the closure of almost all the bridges”the metro being “the only way to cross the Seine”.
Ile-de-France Mobilités had estimated that it could manage up to 500,000 people in total – therefore 400,000 on the high quays.
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