Bittersweet Olympic experience for some in Paris suburb, home of Games
By Juliette Jabkhiro
SAINT-DENIS, France, Aug 9 (Reuters) -After enduring years of construction work on the Olympic Village opposite her block of flats, 15-year-old schoolgirl Enda Fofana had hoped for a free ticket to see the Paris 2024 Games. It never materialised.
The teenager lives in Seine-Saint-Denis, a gritty, racially mixed suburb reaching northeast away from the capital, where the government and local mayors hope investment in new housing, sports facilities, metro lines and cycle lanes will leave a lasting legacy of urban and economic renewal.
The Games' organisers pledged that Seine-Saint-Denis would be a pulsating focal point of the Paris Olympics, home to the athletes' village, the Stade de France national stadium and a new 5,000-seat aquatics centre.
But Fofana echoed the sentiment of some in the area who complained that Paris 2024 did too little to help them enjoy the Games first hand.
"We thought they would plan things for us because, well, it's the Games, it's the biggest event in the world," Fofana said. Her flat's balcony overlooks the entrance to the Olympic village, her middle school nestled among the buildings.
David Lebon, a senior official in the Saint-Denis town hall said all students from Fofana's middle school had received an invite to a sporting event, and she and her friends took part in the torch relay.
Her mother, Ketty Choux-Fofana, said she never saw the invite. She added there had been joyful moments during the Games but cited inconveniences too: longer work commutes because of snarled local roads, heightened police checks and athletes partying under their windows as the Games wound up.
Another Saint-Denis resident, Betty Bonheur, expressed disappointment that tickets were unaffordable to many residents in Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest of mainland France's administrative departments where the unemployment rate is nearly 50% higher than the national average.
"I would have liked them to say 'Here, we've got tickets, we can give you some', to get people involved, to allocate cheaper tickets. That wasn't the case," she said.
SENSE OF DISCONNECT
A Saint-Denis town hall spokesperson said a total of 10,000 opening ceremony invites and 9,000 invites for sports events at the Olympics and Paralympics had been offered to the town's 114,000 people.
Amine Ben Dziri said his daughter was among those fortunate to receive a ticket. She triumphed in a school competition and won a ticket to the athletics.
"It was her first time in such a big stadium. It was very nice," he told Reuters in a local park that had been transformed into a free-to-enter fan zone that was half-full.
The Games have delighted vast, jubilant crowds with sporting events held among some of the capital's most famous landmarks including the Place de la Concorde, Eiffel Tower and Grand Palais - the picture-perfect version of Paris that can seem distant from the hard-knock streets of Saint-Denis.
Local officials hope that the Games will have delivered a jolt to the local economy. The Olympic Village that has been home to some 10,500 athletes will be transformed into housing units, including social and student housing.
Two of the three new developments the Games will leave behind are located in Seine-Saint-Denis. But some residents told Reuters they questioned the sustainability of wider economic benefits.
Mohammed Ydriss Smaali, 21, said he felt the government and local authorities had missed an opportunity to develop job prospects in the area.
"Lots of jobs have been created, even if it was only in the short term," said Smaali. "But no-one did anything, for example, to prioritise the people, the young people who live here."
Reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro; Editing by Hugh Lawson
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