Between forty-three and sixty medals: this is what French athletes should win during the 2024 Olympic Games (OG), which are to take place in Paris from July 26 to August 11, according to an econometric model developed by experts of the economics of sport. But, curiously, the quantification of the economic benefits seems more random.
An impact study was carried out in 2016, before the Games were awarded to Paris, by the Center for Sports Law and Economics. She estimated the economic benefits in a very wide range, ranging from 5.3 billion to 10.7 billion euros, of which between a quarter and a large third generated by tourism. Figures which must be revised, taking into account the inflationary crisis and the international context, recalls Wladimir Andreff, honorary professor of economics at the University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Other, more up-to-date impact studies have been launched but not yet published. “ This shows the difficulty of the exercise »summarizes Lionel Grotto, general director of Choose Paris Region, the international attractiveness agency for the Ile-de-France region.
A few figures provide some benchmarks. The construction of the Olympic infrastructure, which was 84% complete at the end of December 2023, will ultimately generate more than 4 billion euros in investments. The expenses of the Organizing Committee for the Paris 2024 Games (Cojop) will amount to nearly 4.4 billion euros, according to the figures retained by the Court of Auditors in its report to Parliament published in January 2023 .
“Part of the fallout will escape French companies”
Cojop indicated, at the end of December 2023, that it had already signed contracts worth 2.3 billion euros with some two thousand two hundred service providers, three quarters of which were French SMEs or VSEs. Which means that“a part of the fallout will ultimately escape French companies, in proportions that remain to be determined”underline the deputies Stéphane Peu (Seine-Saint-Denis, PCF) and Stéphane Mazars (Aveyron, Renaissance), co-authors of a report published in July 2023, at the end of an information mission on the impact of the Games on the local economic and associative fabric.
According to Sylvain Bersinger, economist with the Asterès firm, expenses linked to the Games benefiting French companies should “ generate the creation of one hundred and nine thousand jobs, as well as some 9.3 billion euros of added value ». Significant benefits, certainly, but which spread over several years, since the construction sites started well before the Games.
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