No test site, no Games preparation center or reception of foreign delegations, no famous athlete to wear its colors. What does it matter! The Meuse, a department among the least densely populated in France (thirty inhabitants per square kilometre), intends to take part in the Olympic adventure. Isn’t the stated ambition of the organizers of the summer 2024 event, whose slogan is “Let’s open the Games wide”, to include all territories?
“We are in a rural department, but we have the right, like the big cities, to dream of the Games”, defends Jérôme Dumont (various right), president of the departmental council. The Meuse and its three main cities (Verdun, Bar-le-Duc and Commercy) have obtained the Terre de Jeux label and, it is an open secret, the Olympic torch relay will cross the department and stop in Verdun.
Of the route, we know nothing, only that the flame will leave Marseille in the spring of 2024 to reach Paris before the opening ceremony of the Games (July 26). The official announcement of the departments and stopover towns was to be made at the end of February, but is falling behind schedule.
In the Meuse, as in many other departments that have applied (about sixty in total), we are getting impatient, and the information has been published in the local press without waiting for the green light from the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) and the firm Olbia Conseil, responsible for orchestrating this relay.
Verdun got the ball rolling and announced that it would be a stopover town from September 2022. “It was recorded in May 2022, assures the mayor (PS) Samuel Hazard. I had spoken to Anne Hidalgo about it when she came to Verdun during the presidential campaign, in November 2021, and she told me that there would be no problem! »
Too high a cost per inhabitant
The departmental assembly (various right) followed with a large majority vote in October 2022, despite some protests. Main point of friction: the Cojop asks for 180,000 euros from the departments crossed. Excessive, according to elected opposition officials, who pointed in a forum on the Meuse.fr websiteat the end of 2021, the choice of “glitter” rather than public service, in a context of budgetary restrictions, in particular because of rising energy costs.
“We have the wrong priority, regrets Jérôme Stein, departmental adviser (various center) for youth, whose budget has been cut from 190,000 euros to 140,000 euros. It is not the flame that will bring young people to play sports! They want to be able to do activities in their village, and with this sum we could have done something good. »
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