French Greens object to spiralling costs of Paris 2024 Olympics

Green party representatives are objecting to the budget earmarked for the Olympic Games in 2024 by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo – who is also the Socialist party's presidential candidate.

Olympics logo for the summer games in Paris, 2024 AFP/Archives

"We do not share all the choices that have been made by the mayor, including the massive funding of the Olympic Games or the municipal police. These are expenses which we could have wisely done without", said Europe Ecologie les Verts councillor Alice Timsit after reviewing the Regional Court of Auditors (CRC) report.

The Greens object to the sums needed to organise the Olympics, and have regularly voted against socialist party projects, including the creation of the municipal police force in June 2021.

Timsit outlined a number of expenses, which she described as a "waste", including €125 million given to Solideo, the company tasked with building Olympic infrastructure, and €25 million for the Arena 2 stadium built in the north of Paris.

"The CRC does not fail to point out that these expenses weigh very heavily on the city's budget", said Timsit.

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The CRC report pointed out that Paris’ financial health improved between 2014-2019 and before the Covid pandemic, but warned that Paris "had a level of investment that was too high compared to its financial capacities".

Centrist Modem party councilor Pierre Casanova added that financing would need to be managed cautiously "because we cannot predict the events to come".

Meanwhile, conservative Les Republicans party councillor David Alphand warned: "The Parisian left is in denial over the debt, which the CRC report indicated could reach €8.9 billion in 2026. This means that the city of Paris will need to either lower investments or raise taxes."

Legal battle

In a separate development, the administrative appeals court in Paris on Thursday cancelled an urban planning application that would have destroyed part of the Aubervilliers gardens in the north of Paris at a site chosen to build a pool for Olympic training.

The court said that there were a number of inconsistencies in the application, pointing to concerns over environmental obligations. The current plan for construction, including a future metro would "undermine the biodiversity of the area," it said.

Opponents blocked the site for four months in 2021, delaying the start of works, and have launched a legal action against the project.

The intermunicipal group, presided over by the mayor of Saint-Denis Mathieu Hanotin, has been given four months to find a new zoning solution for the construction of the venue.