Who will be the lucky ones to get a free ticket to attend the opening ceremony of the next Olympic Games in Paris on July 26? While the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has reduced the gauges for security reasons, the question arises as to who will benefit from places on the high platforms, which will not be put up for sale but distributed according to a distribution which has not yet been made official.
But who becomes clearer, listening to the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, present this Tuesday morning in Colombes for the inauguration of the Yves du Manoir stadium in the company of Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024, and Valérie Pécresse, the president from the Île-de-France region: “There are still some final adjustments to make. However, we have a pattern that is clearly becoming clearer. We will have a little over 220,000 people on the high platforms, as well as 104,000 people on the low platforms. The idea is that we can, with the organizing committee, the city of Paris and the State – the three main stakeholders – offer around 60% of these free places on the high platforms, which represents a just under 140,000 tickets. There will also be a share for the Olympic and Paralympic movement of 9,000 places. This should therefore leave around 74,000 places which would be reserved for all the communities which are also stakeholders in these Games, such as the Île-de-France region, the departmental committee of 93, the host cities and those which will be crossed by road events (cycling, marathon, etc.).”
The minister also wanted to clarify, regarding the target audience, that a particular effort would be made towards the population most impacted by the holding of the games, and more particularly by that of the opening ceremony. “We are also keen to have with us the people who will be impacted by the Games. I am thinking of the students who will have to give up their place in their residence during the summer, also with support from the State to rehouse them and allow them to find the accommodation of their choice from September. I am also thinking of the local residents, the businesses that will be impacted by the opening ceremony and we want around 20% of the tickets that will be offered for this ceremony to directly benefit these people, knowing that we are doing at the same time everything to ensure that this impact is as limited as possible.”
