2024-02-29 16:23:51
The organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games this Thursday officially received the keys to the villa where the athletes will stay during the competitions, in a ceremony in which the French president, Emmanuel Macron, participated.
During July and August, the village will host around 14,500 athletes and their staff before welcoming 9,000 for the Paralympic Games a month later. With an area of 52 hectares, the complex is located north of Paris, near the stadium where the 1998 World Cup final was played.
After the Games, the town will be transformed into an ecological neighborhood that will benefit 6,000 residents and will have two schools, a hotel, a public park, shops and offices, as well as areas with gardens for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles. “After the Games, it will become a real neighborhood for the inhabitants of Saint Denis,” declared Macron.
Nicolás Ferrand, general director of SOLIDEO – the company in charge of Olympic infrastructure -, expressed his satisfaction with what has been achieved: “It is a masterpiece of what the French construction industry can do.”
Ferrand handed a symbolic key to the villa to the president of Paris 2024, Tony Estanguet, officially concluding a seven-year journey since Paris was granted the organization of the Games. “We are proud of the work you did, within budget and on time. Our athletes will be able to experience the Games in the best conditions and you have contributed to changing the lives of the inhabitants of the area. You are part of an adventure that will mark our century,” Macron continued.
The president hailed France as a “nation of builders,” while emphasizing that “what has been done on time and on budget as we complete the reconstruction of Notre-Dame is nothing short of remarkable.” The Notre-Dame church is scheduled to reopen its doors to the public and religious services on December 8 of this year, after being renovated following the fire that devastated it in 2019.