When the French capital secured the 2024 Olympic Games, after decades of failed bids, it was built on two promises. First, was a policy of regeneration in Seine-Saint-Denis, a départment north of Paris that remains one of the poorest in France, with a young, multi-ethnic population that suffers from discrimination and higher than average unemployment. Second, after decades of overspending and waste in other Olympic host cities, Paris promised to scale down: it already had 95% of the sporting facilities in place and did not need to build a main stadium from scratch, unlike London for the 2012 Games.1

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The Olympic Village, a 52-hectare (128-acre) site along the river’s edge, formerly made up of industrial buildings and warehouses, sits at the intersection of three banlieue towns: Saint-Ouen, Saint-Denis and L’Île-Saint-Denis. It will include new and refurbished schools, new parks and already benefits from Greater Paris’s expanded transport system. Rather than create a new Olympic Village neighbourhood “from nothing”, the area was chosen because it was already a focus for renovation.2

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• 1. It would avoid any white elephant novelty structures, such as the ArcelorMittal Orbit metal tower in Stratford, championed by Boris Johnson when he was London mayor. The Paris Games have a relatively modest budget by recent standards, at about €7bn (£6.1bn). Crucially, 80% of investment for the event has been focused on Seine-Saint-Denis and the two key construction projects – the Olympic Village and the aquatics centre – have been built there. A major aim of the village is to reconcile the poorer northern outskirts of Paris with the River Seine. The city’s bold and controversial outdoor opening ceremony in July will include a flotilla of 160 boats carrying athletes along nearly four miles of the river. But the lasting change will be to permanently open up neglected stretches of the shores of the Seine in the northern suburbs. Once ignored and clogged with industry, these riverbanks are seen by local politicians as a key focus for new housing.
• 2. In his office at Saint-Ouen town hall, the Socialist mayor, Karim Bouamrane, points to a framed photograph of himself aged nine sitting near a run-down block with outside toilets and no bathrooms, where he grew up with his Moroccan parents, a builder and a homemaker. The building, long ago demolished, was located in the area of the Olympic Village site. “In this photo, I’m sitting waiting for my uncle, who had a car, to pick me up and take me to football, and I was annoyed because there was no public transport, it was always a struggle and I worried I’d be late,” Bouamrane said. “And I thought it’s a shame there’s no bus to take me, it’s a shame we’re so cut-off here. When I’m mayor, I’ll fix that.”