France’s Olympic Gamble

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris are seen by many in France as an international triumph and a showcase for the country.

Officials who sold the $6.9bn project to France’s citizens – already $2bn over budget – also promised that it would bring new housing and economic opportunities to blighted neighbourhoods, spruce up Paris, and clean up the polluted water in the Seine – making it possible to swim in the river again for the first time since the 1920s.

But people have lost their homes, neighbourhoods and parks to construction, and many unhoused migrants are being bussed out to more rural areas, while surveillance techniques put in place for Olympics security threaten civil liberties.

As the games approach, People & Power investigates the benefits and costs of the Parisian Olympics.