A key line of the Grand Paris metro will not be ready for the 2024 Olympics

The delays were foreseen, they are now confirmed: the Société du Grand Paris formalized on Tuesday the delays of several lines of the future automatic metro in Ile-de-France, and in particular of the sections which were to connect sites of the 2024 Olympic Games. Launched at the end of the 2000s under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, the "Grand Paris Express" will link over 200 km to dozens of suburban municipalities, the research centers of the Saclay plateau and the two Parisian airports of Roissy to north and Orly to the south.

The new schedule formalized on Tuesday now provides for gradual commissioning of the new lines between 2025 and 2030.

Emmanuel Macron's promise

One section in particular is eagerly awaited: part of line 16 on an arc crossing the suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, north-east of Paris.

Four years ago, President Macron had promised it again to the sensitive neighborhoods of Clichy-Montfermeil for 2024, in time for the Olympics.

But the new president of the Société du Grand Paris, appointed in March by the current power dissatisfied with the delays, could only admit the infeasibility of the calendar.

Result: more than two years late.

Opening scheduled "for the second half of 2026," Jean-François Monteils told AFP.

The start of line 17, which was to lead to Le Bourget airport, where a district must be built to accommodate the media from around the world, suffers the same fate: it will not be ready before the second half of 2025.

The organizers of the Olympics had anticipated these delays, as part of their budget review, and moved some sites to more accessible places.

For example the swimming events have been moved from Saint-Denis to Nanterre, well connected by public transport.

The main problem will be the Bourget media village.

There will be "bus" routes planned for journalists but the organizing committee is now considering moving the press center.

Extension of line 14 on time 

Finally, only the extension of line 14 (which was the first automated line of the Paris metro and now crosses the capital) should be completed in time for the Olympics. Its new extensions will link the Olympic village, Pleyel, to Orly airport. The one that the President of the Region, Valérie Pécresse, praises as "one of the most modern lines in the world" had already been extended to Saint-Ouen last December.

SGP officials had warned that the deadlines would be difficult to meet, and the Covid-19 epidemic is only one explanation for the delays among others. "It would be in single quotes if there were only the pandemic crisis, but honesty obliges us to say that there is not only the pandemic crisis," said Jean-François Monteils, however.