In Seine-Saint-Denis, the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) will be “story accelerators”. At least that’s what the signs promise at the various entrances to the departmental sports park of Marville, in La Courneuve, where you can find football pitches, padel, beach volleyball, basketball or even a center equestrian. On a fence, a little further, a banner promotes the volunteer program for the Games.
However, here, the subject does not move too much and is the subject of many questions. “When is it? In 2024, right? »asks a student volleyball player. “It doesn’t really interest me, because there is no footballslice Rabii, 15 years old, ball at the foot. Ah good ? Is there football? And maybe Mbappe? Ah! it changes everything. » On the other side of the field, Hacen, 12, has just learned that a large part of the events will take place in Saint-Denis. A handful of kilometers.
Since obtaining, in 2017, the organization of the JOP, Paris 2024 has shown its desire to integrate working-class neighborhoods into the Games. The legacy that they are supposed to leave is presented as central for these populations accumulating the difficulties. In fact, the ambition looks complex.
If the excitement will be felt in Paris and in the epicenter around Saint-Denis and the Stade de France, what will happen to the other municipalities and departments of Ile-de-France not hosting any event? Olympic Games, which, so close, yet seem so far from the Games? “There is Queen Hidalgo, the aristocrats of Saint-Denis and the toothless from the east of Seine-Saint-Denis. We don’t want to be the stokers of the Olympics”declared Bruno Beschizza (Les Républicains, LR), mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois, during his vows on January 11.
“Non-subject”
Difficult to speak of enthusiasm, in these districts, less than 500 days from the JOP. “On Sundays, at the market, nobody talks to me about the Games. Neither good nor bad, for that matter. It’s a non-topic”, explains Bruno Beschizza today. The current crisis does not necessarily push vulnerable populations to plan for fifteen months.
When we talk to him about Games “popular”Mathieu Lahaye can’t help but sigh. “Go meet young people in the neighborhoods and ask them what the Games mean to them. There is no link. They feel like this event is not for them.”regrets the former sprint specialist, who, with Ladji Doucouré, his counterpart in the 110-meter hurdles, founded Golden Blocks, an association which has been promoting sport in neighborhoods since 2014.
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