2030 Olympics: Green light for infrastructure costs

The final map of venues to host the events in the French Alps will not be finalized until June. The Olympic Works Delivery Company is therefore basing its plans on a "preferred scheme" involving around forty venues, the total cost of which was estimated in December at 1,4 billion euros.

Of this total, the public contribution is expected to reach €868 million (€587 million from the State and the two host regions – Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – and €281 million from other local authorities). A little over €500 million will be contributed in parallel by private operators, primarily property developers.

On Wednesday, following a board meeting, Solideo announced the approval of its "financial model", which includes "all the costs and financing associated with each operation".

The institution states in a press release that this document was "developed in consultation with all the communities concerned" and "is based on balanced, shared and sustainable financing, strictly limited to the needs necessary for the organization of the Games and the building of their legacy".

However, he did not reveal any figures on the amounts planned for each project.

But a detailed document has been made public by the citizens' collective JOP 2030, which denounces the lack of "public participation in the decision-making process" before the bid for these Olympic Games as well as since their awarding and which has launched several proceedings before a UN body in Geneva and before the administrative courts of Lyon and Marseille.

"There are less than four years left"

The Marseille court on Monday demanded greater transparency from Solideo in its communication and information regarding its projects. The company announced it would appeal to the Court of Cassation, stating that it was "already fully engaged in a consultation process on all Olympic venues."

According to the document released by the citizens' group, the Olympic Village in Briançon (Hautes-Alpes) will be the largest project, costing €296 million. The other athletes' villages will be located in Saint-Jean-de-Sixt, Haute-Savoie (€51 million), Bozel, Savoie (€78 million), and Nice (€86 million).

The only infrastructure entirely to be built, the multi-sports complex in Nice, intended to host ice sports events, benefits from a budget of 148 million euros, which rises to 186 million if we add "contingencies, acceleration measures and adjustments".

Renovations of sports facilities are also planned, such as the ski jump in Courchevel or the bobsleigh track in La Plagne (43 million each).

On the logistics side, a third access road, "reserved" among other things for transporting athletes, is planned in the Serre-Chevalier valley, at a cost of 41 million euros. And the "valley lift" linking the Aime SNCF train station to the La Plagne resort is budgeted at 101 million euros.

The adoption of the "financial model" is "a decisive step in the preparation for the Games," stressed Sports Minister Marina Ferrari, quoted in the press release. The president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Renaud Muselier, stated that "every euro counts," while his counterpart for Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fabrice Pannekoucke, emphasized "the ability of public stakeholders to work together."

"It's a sober roadmap, with little new construction, very little net artificialization of land, and a big effort focused on decarbonized mobility," Damien Robert, executive director general of Solideo, summarized last week before the senators, also stressing that there were "now less than four years" left with "a constrained budget envelope."