Paris-2024: on the Olympic sites of Dugny and Le Bourget, hope turns into a "big blur"

At Le Bourget, no sign yet indicates that the town is part of a "Land of Games 2024". It is "still far," says Asfour Mabrouk, who owns two bakeries there. But he sees it as "a godsend", "young people will have work", rejoices the entrepreneur.

"It's a good advertisement for the department which is a little damaged," said Abdenour Bellache, a 31-year-old Bourgetin.

For Zouina Ould'Ali, manager for twenty years of a hairdressing salon, the Olympics-2024 "will show a positive image of Seine-Saint-Denis. It is a beautiful department, we live there well", ensures this elegant 52-year-old woman, for whom the Olympics without Seine-Saint-Denis would be "a disappointment".

Paris-2024 is "a vector of hope for the inhabitants because we finance equipment that I cannot finance", explains the DVD mayor of Le Bourget, Jean-Baptiste Borsali, to whom we have promised a new gymnasium, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a school and a footbridge which will link its municipality to Dugny.

uncertainties

The old municipal sports complex must also be remodeled to accommodate an event.

For the city's Olympic referent, Kamel Ouarti, time is running out. "We would like things to be frozen. The Bourgetins and the city's sports associations are worried," said the veteran vice-world champion in judo.

The president of the Bourget Tennis Club Martine Pasquier has the feeling of being "abandoned". "We cried with joy when we had the Olympics and there we cry with sadness". "Suddenly you have volleyball and then climbing. We promise you a tennis court and then nothing," rants the president, who manages 400 members including 200 children.

Signs announcing destruction line its facilities, which consist of 11 courts.

"We have to plan seven of them during the work and I am no longer certain of recovering them," said Ms. Pasquier. "I do not move from my field even if it means chaining myself as long as I do not have a firm response from the Solideo", the public establishment in charge of major projects, she says.

The bowling alley next to the tennis club will disappear, assures Benoît Picout, president of the pétanque association. "For the moment, it is the great vagueness, we do not know where we are going to be put", he notes, "we are talking about a temporary site in a park in the city center while perhaps waiting new ground in four years ".

'Red line'

"We will no longer be able to organize tournaments, it is a shortfall for the club", regrets this native of Seine-Saint-Denis. "We were promised a new bowling alley, I hope that the promise will be kept. The Olympics are good if we are left with equipment."

In Dugny, giant letters in Olympic colors mark the entrance to this poor little town located less than 13 km north of Paris.

It should host the media village destined to be transformed into a thousand housing units, shops and schools. "It's a blur," says Mayor Quentin Gesell (DVD) who is trying to negotiate "600-700 housing units" for the post-Olympics, without any guarantee for the rest of the equipment.

The media "cluster" should accommodate nearly 2.800 journalists on 70 hectares on the edge of the "green lung" of the department, the Georges-Valbon park.

For now, this large lawn which traditionally hosts the Huma Festival is fallow.

"The media village is the main red line not to cross for Seine-Saint-Denis," warns Stéphane Troussel, president of the department of PS. He urged "the State to take its responsibilities to finance the project" instead of the organizing committee.

With the athletes' village also located in the department, this is the other major development operation. It "is at the heart of the material heritage" for the inhabitants, declares Mr. Troussel.