This is a new controversial subject for Paris 2024. After the criticism and tensions caused by the policy of ticket sales – their accessibility and their price – the question of the sale of alcohol at the future venues of the Olympic Games competitions and Paralympics (JOP) arouses strong reactions.
Since Monday, July 26, the subject has been feeding social networks. Under the keyword #Paris2024, dozens and dozens of messages were published on Twitter after The Parisian published an article announcing that there will be no alcoholic beverages offered to the general public in the premises of the JOP in the summer of 2024. In London, in 2012, or in Rio, in 2016, it was possible to drink beer.
It is not so much this absence of alcohol in the catering offer for spectators – which the Organizing Committee for the Games (Cojop) justified by saying that it applied the Evin law – which generated the most of comments: these mainly focused on the fact that this consumption of alcoholic beverages will not actually be prohibited for everyone.
Drinking champagne, wine or beer will be possible in the “VIP hospitality areas”, i.e. for people who have acquired tickets for top-of-the-range services, including places for events, but also catering services, entertainment, visits… It is this double standard that is widely denounced.
“It is the strict application of French law”
On the prohibition of the sale of alcohol to the general public, the Cojop explains “not having wished to request a derogation or a special regime”which the law authorizes however… however not in sufficient proportions, according to the organizers.
“Such a waiver would have involved a legislative change for an event the size of the Games”notes the management of Paris 2024, which recalls that the law allows derogation from the ban on the sale of alcohol for ten events per organizer, per year and per municipality. “However, we are going to organize more than 700 competition sessions over fifteen days of competition. »
As for the difference in treatment between the general public in halls or stadiums hosting Olympic events and VIPs in the boxes of hospitality areas, “It’s not our doing”defends the Cojop. “It is the strict application of French law, which authorizes catering services including the service of alcohol in hospitality spaces governed by the law on catering. »
Faced with accusations of two-tier treatment, the organizers content themselves with declaring that“it is not up to Paris 2024 to comment on this difference in regime, but to the legislator in the last resort to define the relevant framework for event organizers”.
Our selection of articles on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Find all our content on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games:
The IOC displays a “high level of trust” about the preparation for the Olympic Games
OJ: the Court of Auditors considers that the Paris 2024 budget remains marked by “great uncertainties”
The price of seats
With 6.8 million tickets sold, Tony Estanguet defends “Games open to the greatest number”
- Environmental issues
The difficult bet of “green” Olympic Games
- The question of the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes
More than three-quarters of Russian medalists at the Tokyo Games fall outside the IOC’s neutrality model
“Several hundred thousand spectators” free access and 35,000 law enforcement personnel for the opening ceremony
The huge transport challenge
- The societal issues highlighted by the Games
Accessibility for people with disabilities is slow to be implemented
Gender parity at the Games cannot make us forget the slow feminization of sports practice
In Pessac, sports clubs want to offer people with disabilities “a practice like for any member”
jostled, the ” model “ French sports association is looking for a new lease of life
- Seine-Saint-Denis and the Games
The 2024 Olympics in Paris, a distant horizon in working-class neighborhoods
In Bobigny, nearby construction sites, but distant jobs for young people in integration
On Airbnb, the Olympic Games make Parisian owners fantasize
The Paris 2024 Olympics accelerate the transformation of North-East Paris
- The Games are not just Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis
Thanks to the Paris 2024 Olympics, Grigny wants to create “a local Olympic ecosystem”
Olympic Games 2024: the Meuse wants to take advantage of the Games to develop its attractiveness through sport