Olympics host cities often extol the positive impact and enduring legacy a Games will have for the local population, but the reality is sometimes quite different. From white elephant stadiums that sit empty to a less-than-hoped for uptake of sport, host cities can sometimes fail to harness their grand legacy plans.
What legacy can Parisians expect from the city’s Games for the better and – possibly – for the worse?
A cleaned-up Seine
One of the biggest talking points – and controversies – in the run-up to the Paris Olympics was the will-it, won’t-it debate over whether the river Seine would be clean enough to swim in.
Swimming had been banned in the famous waterway since 1923 because of high pollution levels, but authorities had pledged to rid the river of 75% of identifiable bacterial pollution through an ambitious €1.4 billion plan by the start of the Games.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo showed her faith in the capital’s waters by donning a wetsuit and taking a dip a few weeks ahead of the Olympics.
But torrential rain in the lead up to the Games meant pollution levels rose, forcing organisers to cancel practice swims and delay the men’s triathlon.
Read more: Photo: Paris mayor keeps her pledge and goes for a swim in Seine
Despite the obstacles, the river hosted the five open-water swimming events and French daily Le Figaro declared the cleaning up of the Seine to be one of “the most significant legacies” of the Olympics.
President Macron called the clean up a “fabulous legacy” for Parisians and “for biodiversity”.
“The city is clearly doing its best to make it swimmable for everyone and I’m excited to test it out,” says author and Paris resident Heather Stimmler, who runs the Secrets of Paris Instagram account.
Authorities hope the river will become a regular swimming spot for Parisians from 2025 onwards.
“Having a clean river could be a huge boon for residents of Paris, especially in an age of climate change,” American academic and author Jules Boykoff, author of six books on the Olympics, most recently ‘What are the Olympics For?’, told The Connexion.
But despite the potential benefits for locals, he said some significant questions remain.
“In assessing water safety, the Surfrider Foundation was only testing for two bacteria: E. coli and enterococci. But what about other pollutants? Pesticide runoff, pharmaceutical refuse, or toxic metals? They simply weren’t testing for them,” Mr Boycoff said.
“Cleaning up the Seine is a noble goal, but moving forward, for the sake of public health, full transparency should be the norm.”
New housing
One major aim of the Paris Olympics was for the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, one of the poorest areas in France and home to the Olympic village, to feel the economic and social benefits long after the last race was run.
Paris has promised to turn the Olympic village, which was equipped to house 14,000 athletes during the Games, into a mixed-use area of housing, businesses and shops. It will be a whole new district of Seine-Saint-Denis.
It will include 2,800 new apartments that are expected to house up to 6,000 people. Authorities have promised 25% of homes will be dedicated to social housing.
“The Games are an incredible opportunity. They will allow us to change our image, and also to deliver housing to help improve the social balance of the city,” the mayor of Saint-Denis, Mathieu Hanotin, told the New York Times ahead of the Games.
Gender equality
For the first time ever, there were as many female athletes as male athletes competing in an Olympic Games in Paris – the first completely gender balanced Olympics. Organisers hope the achievement will set a precedent that continues at the LA Olympics and beyond.
Gender parity was “one of the most important moments in the history of women at the Olympic Games, and in sport overall,” International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said ahead of the Games.
And gender balance went beyond the 10,500 competitors. Women also made up 50% of the 45,000 volunteers.
Homelessness
Paris authorities removed some homeless people who lived close to key venues in the lead up to the Olympics, a move fiercely criticised by charities and defended by authorities, which said it had the effect of providing some rough sleepers with permanent housing.
“Of 412 people who were living on the streets close to major event locations, 250 have agreed to move into housing, 52 others are in medical-social care and the others have refused any housing,” Ile-de-France prefect Marc Guillaume told Le Figaro.
But Le Revers de médaille (The other side of the medal), an umbrella group of some 80 homeless and migrant organisations, has said the number of places offered to the homeless is inadequate when as many as 14,000 homeless people, refugees and migrants were removed from the city.
Group spokesman Paul Alauzy, of NGO Médicins du Monde, has described the removal of some of the city’s most vulnerable residents as “social cleansing”.
“How a society treats those with the least resources and power is a sign of that society’s character. France has a real character test in front of it in the wake of the Paris Games,” said academic and author Jules Boykoff.
Improved public information
French authorities embraced multilingual communication during the Olympics, something it is hoped will continue.
The Interior Ministry’s English-language website was a particular hit during the Games, registering 526,000 visits during the two-week event. This compares to 1.3 million users during the whole of 2023.
And despite reports ahead of the Olympics of Parisians being less-than-enthused about hosting, in the end, locals embraced the Games wholeheartedly, with many stressing how welcoming and fun the atmosphere was.
“It showed that for all the fear mongering and negativity, the atmosphere in the city during the Olympics was amazingly positive and people were happily surprised by the friendliness of the Parisians, the effectiveness of the security, the fun at each event, and of course the amazing setting,” said writer and Paris resident Heather Stimmler.
Perception of police
French police have not always had the smoothest relationship with the public, but were seen by some as a welcome presence during the Olympic Games, which put a huge focus on security amid concerns of potential terror attacks or disruption.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, speaking after the Olympics, said France’s security forces had given a “gold medal” performance during the Olympics.
“Our units felt an Olympic effect, just as there was a post-Charlie effect after the 2015 attacks, with a strong enthusiasm from Parisians and tourists for police officers and gendarmes,” one officer told Le Figaro.
But a “shadow legacy” of the Games, that organisers will be less keen to highlight, is the intensified security it ushered in, says Olympics expert Jules Boykoff.
“On one hand, this was simply an extension of the state’s response to previous terrorist attacks. On the other hand, the Olympics served as a pretext to soft launch surveillance technologies – like algorithmic video surveillance – that are deeply concerning to civil-liberties advocates.”
“The Olympics helped normalise intensified, high-tech policing,” he said.
No white elephants
A common - and much-feared - Olympic legacy is that of the white elephant stadium, sitting unused and decaying and failing to recoup the millions in investment ploughed into it.
But Paris will largely avoid this legacy as – in line with its ‘greenest Games ever’ philosophy – 95% of venues were existing or temporary; practically nowhere new was built specifically for the Olympics.
The result was event locations that brought spectators to the heart of Paris and its landmarks, which were praised for their stunning backdrops. Taekwondo competitors fought under the glass domed roof of the Grand Palais, while beach volleyball was played in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
The integration of the city and its historic landmarks into the heart of events could be one legacy that future Olympic host cities may try to emulate.
What do you think the major legacies of the Paris Olympics will be? Are you looking forward to a swim in the Seine? Let us know your views at feedback@connexionfrance.com
