A basketball court installed at the Place de la Concorde in Paris on December 28, 2023. BENOIT TESSIER / REUTERS
The mayor Anne Hidalgo announced in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche that “half of the surface of the Place de la Concorde in Paris will not be returned to motorists after the Olympics.”
With six and a half months to go before the summer Olympics, the socialist mayor specifies that the biggest square in the capital “will be offered for walking from the Tuileries to the obelisk” at the end of the Games. She believes that “traffic flows more smoothly by closing half of the square” and that the “place dedicated to the car in this emblematic place will have only been a parenthesis in history.”
She recalls that “the Place de la Concorde, the Trocadéro and Iéna, with the Champ de Mars, constitute fifty hectares of pedestrian and planted spaces for walking” and “sixty kilometers of additional cycle paths” will be set up “compared to what we would have done without the Games.”
The Place de la Concorde will host urban sports events (BMX freestyle, breakdance, skateboarding, and 3×3 basketball) from the Paris Olympics, as well as the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games (August 28 – September 8).
This location with degraded furniture and pavement – a recurring criticism of the city hall – had already hosted a fan zone that could accommodate up to 10,000 people around its famous obelisk during the Rugby World Cup. The fountains in the square are undergoing renovation works that are expected to be completed in August.
Regarding infrastructure, the network of cycle paths, hosting events at the Olympic sites, or even that of tourists, “I have constantly said: we are ready,” emphasizes Anne Hidalgo, reiterating that “there are other issues, such as public transport, where there is still work to be done.”
For Parisians, “of course, there will be constraints with the installation of Olympic sites, for some of them as early as March-April,” adds the mayor. But “the Games in Paris will be an unforgettable celebration,” she assures.
The World with AFP
