The Minister for Transport Clément Beaune recognized on Tuesday that during the 2024 Olympics, road traffic (vehicles, RATP buses, etc.) would be “complicated” in Paris on competition days and indicated that traffic plans in the capital would be presented no later than the beginning of December. The minister, who was speaking as part of the first congress of the Group of Hotels and Restaurants of France (GHR), specified that he had held on Tuesday morning “a meeting with all transport stakeholders and the Paris police prefect” . “By the end of November, at the very beginning of December at the latest, the long-awaited traffic plans in Paris will be presented. I will not hide from you that these traffic plans, (…) they will be “hardcore”, indicated the minister to the professionals, who are waiting for these plans in particular for their deliveries.
“On competition days, it will be complicated to get around Paris,” he admitted. “There will obviously be both exemptions and specific rules for professionals”, with “a consultation phase until the start of next year”, he added. “Then, there will be an information campaign both on anticipation of the games, how to ensure that we have a little less travel (…) superfluous during the Games”, and “to explain this what happens during the Games: the plans, the exemptions, those who have the right to travel,” he detailed. “There will be particular attention, both in exemptions, and in upstream communication, for professionals and for all those who supply you,” added Clément Beaune, addressing professionals in the sector.
The minister was also questioned by professionals about the expected increase in the tourist tax in Paris, to finance transport in Île-de-France. “There was no perfect solution,” he admitted, “someone had to pay” and “I don’t think it was sustainable to have a Navigo pass that would have cost between 120 and 130 euros in the next four to five years,” he explained. “The idea with the tourist tax, and when we compare it to other European metropolises, it was not very high, is that tourists contribute to the financing of additional public transport,” he said. added, acknowledging: “I know it’s not at all trivial.”
