French officials in major row over warnings Paris won’t be ready to host 2024 Olympics

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Paris will not be ready to host the Olympics and Paralympics next summer, city mayor Anne Hidalgo has warned, amid concerns over slow progress on transport and social housing for the homeless.

“There will be places where [public] transport will not be ready because there will not be enough trains and not frequently enough,” Hidalgo told news show Quotidien in thinly veiled criticism of Paris region president Valerie Pecresse.

The Ile de France [Paris region] Regional Council, led by right-winger Pecresse, is in charge of transport in the region.

Hidalgo said the government was also “a little bit” responsible for the situation, adding: “But we do this all together, so I’m also concerned”.

Socialist Hidalgo said the RER (regional express train) station at Porte Maillot in western Paris would not be ready for the Olympic Games, which run from 26 July to 11 August.

However, Pecresse wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter: “We will be ready. It’s a huge collective effort that shouldn’t be denigrated by an absent mayor.”

Hidalgo added that the situation of the homeless in the capital was another major issue.

“I don’t want to take them out and hide them [during the Olympics]. There should be a social legacy,” Hidalgo said.

“We want to set up housing where they could be as soon as this winter and we’re dealing with it with the regional authorities and the state and we all agree that we have to move forward – but we are not ready.”

Reuters