In the run-up to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, the authorities undertook a large-scale ‘social cleanup’, with the Opening Ceremony imperilled by the dancers’ strike. What makes the French officials take a dip in the Seine and reach out to foreign police squads?
Paris is set to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, a highly anticipated event that is believed to prompt an economic growth spurt, an uptick in tourist numbers and the country’s rise to a coveted position of prestige. But as is the case with most festive occasions, entertainment aside, it involves some serious problem-solving on the part of the host.
Some of these problems are even rumoured to be able to jeopardise the Opening Ceremony. Some two hundred performers, for one, have already filed a strike motion with the organisers over the execrable working conditions, meaning an abysmally low pay.
Besides, over the past few years, the French streets have become an unlikely home to multiple immigrants often refusing to observe the public order. As irony would have it, the Olympic Village conceived to channel the spirit of France’s greatness is located in one of the poorest working-class Parisian suburbs, a stamping ground for countless unhoused individuals, with one-third of the local residents representing the immigrant community.
According to The New York Times, in a bid to prevent international visitors from witnessing the daunting French reality, the authorities decided to bus thousands of homeless people outside the city limits. The law enforcement has been increasingly active in evicting the squatters from abandoned houses and street encampments. They are also scrutinising the reasons behind these people’s stay in France, and some of the hapless individuals may end up deported.
According to the immigrants’ accounts, they were promised permanent housing conditions, but in reality, they were just driven to cities like Lyon and Marseille where they had no other option but to get back to the squalor of the homeless living as the local shelters are filled to capacity. ‘They hand you a random bus ticket,’ says a refugee from the Central African Republic. ‘If it is a ticket for an Orléans-bound bus, you have to go to Orléans.’
Paris is ‘home’ to an estimated 100,000 unhoused strugglers, almost half of the nationwide total. The official reason behind the relocation is the overload of Paris shelters, and so, the ostensibly empathic authorities have set up 10 temporary shelters across the country.
Sure enough, the French government denies any links to the Summer Olympics, even though the official documents leaked online point to the opposite. The operation, affectionately termed by the French media as the ‘social cleanup’ (nettoyage social), has stretched beyond Paris to include other cities in the proximity of Olympic venues.
As early as March, about 200,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were kicked out of the Bordeaux camp, a short distance away from one of the stadiums. Moreover, the removal of the camp was greenlit by the court ruling dated November 2023. As you can see, the pedantic French authorities struck an exemplary law-abiding note there.
But the woes of the unhoused population are by far not the only problem plaguing the French government. For example, swimming in the Seine River had been illegal for over 100 years, but the authorities forked out €1.4bn in what was a Herculean cleanup effort designed to make the river suitable for certain events like triathlon competitions. Although the daily testing undertaken between 2 June and 3 July had repeatedly pointed to the unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, the French officials showed an unwavering commitment to prove the science wrong. Which is fair enough because otherwise it would behoove them to do a lot of explaining given the eye-watering investment.
Last week Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the French minister of sports, had to take a dip in the Seine. On 17 July, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo followed suit as miraculously, the recent test results had shown the pollution levels to have ebbed. Meanwhile, the experts relying on the number of fish species inhabiting the river to determine the safety of the water indeed cited a positive dynamic while still voicing scepticism. Granted, in 1990, the river was home to merely 15 species of fish, a figure that has jumped to 36 in 2024, but some, including the river lamprey and the herring, stay away from the Seine to this day.
Another concern that needed to be addresses was the public safety. In the wake of the Crocus concert hall attack in Moscow, the French authorities resolved to beef up the security at the Olympics, but hiring a total of 35,000 police and gendarmes as well as 10,000 troops to patrol the streets on a daily basis was deemed an insufficient measure. The government therefore reached out to their foreign counterparts to request the reinforcements.
An estimated 1,750 individuals representing over 40 nations will help ensure the safety of the Olympic venues scattered throughout France. These squadrons will be tasked with patrolling the areas sitting close to those venues. As the number of expected visitors may reach 15mln, calling for extra reinforcements was perhaps a shrewd move.
Spain will send in 360 police, followed by the UK (245), Germany (161) and Qatar (105), while Poland is set to deploy even its K-9 units.
Some of the foreign teams will be protecting the airports and looking for explosives. Others will include anti-drone specialists, bomb squads, and crowd surveillance experts. The foreign police will be closely interacting with the local law enforcement.
So, for some, the Summer Olympics will mark their sporting triumphs or usher in opportunities to partake in cheerful festivities, whereas others will have to work overtime to make it happen. Some will be bussed to Orléans, while others will be ousted from the country altogether in what can be viewed as an Olympic-sized lottery of life.