Olympic Games-2024: Autun, in the heart of Morvan, dreams of becoming a refuge for evicted Parisians

"Your landlord is kicking you out? A great opportunity to look elsewhere": Autun, in the heart of Morvan and in demographic decline, is launching a campaign to attract Parisians evicted from their homes by owners wanting to re-rent at high prices during the Games Olympics.

“We have a rather declining demographic but a large reception capacity,” summarizes Vincent Chauvet, Modem mayor of Autun (Saône-et-Loire).

"But we saw in the press that entire families of Parisians were thrown out of their homes and couldn't find anything. It's time to tell them: here we have work and cheap housing. ", he explains to AFP.

Around 16 million tourists are expected in Paris during the Games, from July 26 to August 11.

Faced with a saturated and overpriced hotel supply, short-term rental prices are exploding, whetting the appetites of owners who give notice to their tenants to re-rent at a better rate, which is illegal.

This phenomenon was confirmed, without being able to quantify it, by the Departmental Housing Information Agency (Adil) of Paris.

Faced with this situation, the Autun town hall launched a campaign on great opportunity to look elsewhere.”

Autun, a typically Burgundian town of just over 13.000 inhabitants, is only "250 km from Paris", emphasizes Mr. Chauvet. “We have 371 vacant jobs in all areas and more than 1.000 homes are empty, out of a total of 8.500,” he adds. The price of a new m2 is around 1.100 euros, far behind Parisian rates.

Like the department and even the region, Autun is seeing its population decline slightly (around 0,5% per year), due to deaths not compensated for by births, which leads to class closures (47 are planned for the start of the school year on the the whole of Saône-et-Loire) and an impoverishment of the city center.

Autun is one of the 222 territories in France benefiting from the government revitalization plan called “Action Coeur de Ville”.