Widely highlighted during the French bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the department of Seine-Saint-Denis must capture around 80% of the investments made in view of the event. But if certain cities, such as Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen, Ile-Saint-Denis, or even Dugny, or Le Bourget appear in the first ranks of the “beneficiaries” and count on a post-Olympic heritage, other municipalities may not feel the “JO effect”. This is what the mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois fears. ” The Olympics must not be a flying saucer, which arrives, it lands there, the inhabitants will watch it from afar (…) and it will leave, ” warned Bruno Beschizza, elected LR, in an interview with Agence France-Pesse.
Seine-Saint-Denis places great hopes on the legacy of the Games, a central concept for this poor department which seeks to use global competition as an accelerator of economic and social development, in particular through several infrastructures under construction. and which will continue after the Games (athletes’ villages, media village, Olympic aquatic center, training sites, etc.).
“There will be no economic fallout”
Aulnay-sous-Bois will also be among the towns concerned by Olympic equipment (a swimming pool will serve as a training pool). But in the eyes of Bruno Beschiza, the account is not there, especially since the media village, in Dugny, risks not being full, for lack of attractiveness. For him, many inhabitants of the department “may be going to participate in the sporting event but there will be no economic fallout”.
“I assume my bitterness vis-à-vis the Olympics”explains the city councilor, who is also president of the Paris Terres d’Envol intermunicipal association, which brings together eight cities, also deploring a lack of consultation on various aspects such as security.
The other major concern is that of travel during the Games in a dense territory where traffic is already complicated. The city of Aulnay-sous-Bois has also been targeted by Ile-de-France Mobilités to accommodate a thousand buses in a giant 20-hectare car park, on a former PSA site. The case is under review, but “nothing fits” in terms of roads, worries the elected official.