Olympic Games villages ready to unlock the genius of a troubled city

Regeneration and hopes of better integration of neglected Paris suburbs, where Kylian Mbappe earned his spurs as a native son

Police patrol near the athletes' village for the Paris Olympics in Saint-Denis, which will house up to 14,500 people, including 9,000 competitors. AFP

A new eco-village ready to host 15,000 journalists and technicians covering the Paris 2024 Olympic Games from this week is drawing the attention of one breed of Parisian: the investor looking for a suburb on the move.

Set in Dugny in the north-east of Paris, near Le Bourget Airport which hosts the biannual Paris Air Show, the Media Village is in the banlieue, or suburb, north of Paris long associated with poverty and violence. Yet the Media Village is also one of the biggest regeneration projects of the Olympic Games.

What used to be a wasteland has been replaced by buildings with geothermal cooling systems that will be connected by cycle lanes to the region's biggest park. Trees have been planted and recycling bins installed along pedestrian paths.

There is hope that the Games will attract tourists and investors in Seine Saint-Denis, also the location of the Stade de France which will host athletics, rugby sevens and the Olympic closing ceremony.

Comparisons have been made with Stratford, an area of post-industrial decline in east London, where the hosting of the London 2012 Olympics is widely viewed as a successful regeneration project.

Cycling through the streets of the Media Village, Sylvain Levaillant, 59, an IT company owner, is thinking of buying one of the 900 housing units that will be on the market after the Games end in September.

“I live nearby. Why not invest here?” he said.

At the top of the building behind him, a large sign reads: "Here, become an owner: 3, 4 and 5 rooms available, starting €275,000 [$300,000] with a parking spot."

Disappointed by the lack of further information, Mr Levaillant said he’d be back, enthused by the change he has already seen in Dugny ahead of the Games.

“They've widened the nearby park and cycling paths, everything's been revamped,” he said. “It’s a commuter town with a bad reputation."

Aziz, 66, a retired maitre d’hotel, said he had advised a friend he should also invest in the Media Village but that he expressed reservations because of insecurity fears.

“Insecurity is the first thing people think about in the 93," Aziz told The National, referring to Seine Saint-Denis’ department number. "I told him there's a police station nearby. He can't find better protection!"

The place to be?

The violence of riots that spread through the France and the banlieues last summer and across the country remains etched in people's minds.

Dugny was one of many towns to witness attacks on public infrastructure that cost the state close to €1 billion in total after a 17-year-old driver of Algerian origin was killed at a police checkpoint.

The July 2023 riots were worse than a similar episode in 2005 after the deaths of two young men in an electricity substation during a police chase.

About 50,000 people took part in the riots: 1,000 were wounded and two died, according to a Senate report published in April. “Urban guerrilla techniques" were used, it said. The average rioter was described as a 23-year-old single Frenchman with limited education living with his parents.

Local officials have seized on the Olympic Games to boost Seine Saint-Denis’ profile and further spread sports participation in a bid to tone down the feelings of social alienation known to fuel riots.

Speaking on background, one official said they want Seine Saint-Denis to become "the place to be".

During the Games, the George Valbon park near Dugny will host the biggest free fanzone in France. It will include a giant screen on a lake and an 80-metre tower with a 29km radius panoramic view.

"Of course, we can't compete with the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe or the Louvre Museum," chairman of the Seine Saint-Denis department council Stephane Troussel told The National during a recent visit of the park.

But Mr Troussel also highlighted the number of Olympic sites in the department, including the Athletes' Village, the Media Village, as well as competition and training sites.

In a similar fashion to the Media Village, the Athletes' Village will be converted into 2,800 homes that will boast state-of-the-art technology to keep the buildings cool inside in summer, without air conditioning, in anticipation of global warming.

"If tourists, either from France or abroad, want something a little different than the densest urban heart of Paris, they have here a festive and popular offer," Mr Troussel said, pointing at the 8-hectare future fanzone nestled on a lake amid the 415-hectare park. It can host up to 10,000 people at a time.

Stratford as a model

A socialist, Mr Troussel knows it's worth fighting for Seine Saint-Denis to shine during the Games.

He "threatened the entire world" to push back against talk of moving the Media Village elsewhere during the preparation phase, he told daily newspaper Le Monde for a recent profile.

Mr Troussel had been briefed by the mayor of Stratford, the 2012 Olympics site.

"The Stratford mayor warned me: 'Legacy is up to you. I didn't give up,'" he said in the interview, signalling his hope of an outcome similar to the east London borough.

More than 12,000 homes now lie within the green and pleasant Olympic Park, once a derelict industrial landscape in Stratford, in what was a key regeneration goal of the £8.77 billion ($11.33 billion) Games.

The former Olympic Stadium is now home to West Ham United and events such as MLB baseball, while the Aquatic Centre is a public pool, and the open park a popular summer hangout.

When The National explored London’s 10-year legacy in 2022, those involved spoke with pride at how the Olympics transformed an area where, before the Games, “nobody would want to go at night”, as Peter Tudor from the London Legacy Development Corporation put it.

“The park’s fantastic, the venues are thriving, but it’s what it’s done for the people – that’s what I love,” he said.

Legacy will not be only about new buildings and facilities but also about inspiring young people to take part in more sports and develop values such as self-confidence and respect, officials say.

Scores of grass-roots sports associations have seized on the Games to organise events in disenfranchised areas on the outskirts of Paris promoting respect and friendship.

Olympic torchbearers from Seine Saint-Denis include a number of local athletes involved in youth associations.

Just having Seine Saint-Denis as your home department on your CV can be an obstacle to find a job. Joining a sports club can help, Seine-Saint-Denis department sports councillor Zainaba Said-Anzum told The National.

"So many young people face constant disparagement just because they live in Seine Saint-Denis," Ms Said-Anzum said. "Being part of a sports team can give them more self-confidence in life."

New recruitment techniques involving watching candidates playing sports to better evaluate their qualities are becoming popular, she added.

Scientific doubts

Yet the apparent consensus that sport is a solution to reducing urban violence has raised eyebrows among a number of academics.

Sport can temporarily bring people together through the joy of a common experience but its long-term social impact has not been proven scientifically, said Pascal Francois, senior lecturer in geography at Sciences Po Paris University.

Seine Saint-Denis has the lowest number of sports facilities per person in France but has produced international superstar Kylian Mbappe.

This is in part linked to high population density, which stimulates competition as well as long-term investment by municipalities to democratise sport and incentivise grass-roots associations.

Brought together

Most top French male football players come from a banlieue of a big city – mostly Paris but also from smaller cities such as Lyon.

This background is shared, though to a lesser extent, with their Moroccan counterparts, Mr Francois found in a map that was commissioned by the Museum of Working Class History (Musee de l’histoire vivante) of Montreuil, east of Paris.

Mr Francois told The National he hopes that his map will encourage people to question preconceived ideas of ethnicity.

The fact that competing players have in some cases grown up in similar areas shows that perhaps more cultural exchanges than expected exist between France and Morocco, a former colony.

As a geographical location, the suburb has long been associated with working-class people who cannot afford to live in the city centre.

"Sports is often portrayed as a confrontation of national stereotypes. But it's a more homogeneous world than people think," said Mr Francois, who also heads the association of francophone football researchers.

There is more disparity among female footballers, however, with Moroccan players coming from more middle-class backgrounds than their French counterparts.

Work by French sociologist William Gasparini has shown that public authorities started using sport as a tool to promote integration in the banlieues in the 1980s. The target was at first young men. Women were not actively sought out until the 2000s.

Yet violence remains a reality that can sometimes impact sport.

During the 2005 riots, a gymnasium was set on fire by youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, causing shock in the city, said Mr Francois.

“There was intense dismay within the local sporting world when that happened,” said Mr Francois, who was heavily involved in promoting football in Clichy-sous-Bois in the 1980s and 1990s.

“It appeared counter-intuitive that the gymnasium was not viewed as a protected space. That raised questions regarding how local actors perceive sports infrastructures.”

Political messages conveyed by officials promising change through sports are well-worn communication strategies with uncertain outcomes.

“Integration is a complex and controversial concept," Mr Francois said. "The criteria for assessing it, if any, are often either vague and pessimistic or naively laudatory discourses put forward by politicians in need of a communication strategy.

“Employment stability or access to housing are much more important factors to determine someone’s trajectory than their access to sport.

"Change is slow and must be deeply ingrained in society. Otherwise, it's a media stunt."

No doubt discussions will continue for years to come. Paris 2024 organisers will be commissioning no less than 13 studies on the Games' impact, including on tourism and on the economy.