Paris (AFP)

Deprived of the springboard for the Tokyo Olympics this summer, faced with health and economic crises, the organizers of the Paris-2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games are seeing the path narrowing, between budgetary constraints and the risk of broken promises.

"There will be better days, that's for sure," summed up the president of the French Olympic committee Denis Masseglia on June 28. In front of his general assembly, he recognized that the "prospects are not looking good for Tony (Estanguet) and his teams" of the organizing committee (OCOG), between "health crisis", "postponement of the Tokyo Games" and "concern about the economic recovery coupled with a possible second pandemic wave".

Four years before the opening ceremony, the three-time Olympic canoe champion refuses to give in to pessimism. "This project, it brings the possibility of showing an enthusiastic France, which will welcome the world", with "5 billion euros of markets" to the key, he said Tuesday, on the sidelines of the presentation of " club Paris 2024 ", intended to involve the general public in the Games.

- More expensive ? -

But the reality is there. On the one hand, the OCOG, responsible for the organization of the events - more than 300 -, the celebrations and the provisional sites, will have to save money because the expected revenues from the sponsors are expected to be more modest. The bar was set at 1.1 billion euros, out of a total budget of 3.8. "It was an ambition that was fairly cautious. Today, it is becoming a real ambition that we will have to look for", recognizes Estanguet, even if "between 30 and 40% of the target (is) already reached".

On the other side, at the Solideo, the public establishment responsible for major projects that will start in 2021, such as the Olympic village in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) where the 10,500 athletes will be hosted, we expect also to see the bill climb, in particular because of a rise in costs in the construction industry. Thus, the total estimated bill for the aquatic center, which will stand in front of the Stade de France, still in Saint-Denis, has increased from 113 to 174.7 million euros.

Will history repeat itself for Paris-2024, condemned like previous editions to see its budget soar? On condition of anonymity, an actor in the project sums up the equation: "either we increase the envelope" of the Solideo, which amounts to 3 billion euros, including 1.5 billion of public funds of the State and communities, "either it will be necessary to cut projects".

- Seine-Saint-Denis -

How far away are the days when, at the end of December 2019, the OCOG teams enthusiastically announced two additional sites, one for surfing in Tahiti, on "the most beautiful wave in the world" of Teahupo'o, the another on the prestigious Place de la Concorde in Paris for so-called urban sports (climbing, 3x3 basketball, freestyle BMX, breakdance, skateboarding).

Now, the entire Paris-2024 map is being reviewed and "there will perhaps be a set of musical chairs", as was already the case in 2018 after a first alert on costs, affirms Estanguet, which plans to "pool" certain sites.

Which ? All eyes seem to be on the Olympic area of ​​Le Bourget, where the shooting and volleyball events must be held, and where the media center and village must stand, converted like the Olympic village into a housing district after the Olympics. .

The negotiations promise to be tense with the elected officials of Seine-Saint-Denis, where the players in the Games have always promised a strong legacy, from the time of the French candidacy.

"The heart of the Olympics is Seine-Saint-Denis, it is a condition of the commitment of Seine-Saint-Denis in this project", thundered at the beginning of July the president of his departmental council, Stéphane Troussel. “There is no question of stripping our territory of the legacy of the Games,” he added. A first hot file for the prefect Michel Cadot, who succeeded Wednesday to the new Prime Minister Jean Castex as interministerial delegate to the Olympics.

© 2020 AFP