Olympic Games 2024: "On competition days, it will be complicated to get around Paris", warns Clément Beaune

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MAGALI COHEN / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 16:36 p.m., November 14, 2023, modified at 16:37 p.m., November 14, 2023

Transport Minister Clément Beaune acknowledged on Tuesday that during the Paris 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 by early December at the latest. The minister, who was speaking as part of the first congress of the Groupement des hôtelleries et restaurations de France (GHR), said he had held Tuesday morning "a meeting with all the actors of transport and the prefect of police of Paris".

"They're going to be hardcore"

"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 won't hide from you that these traffic plans, (...) they will be hardcore," the minister told the professionals, who are waiting for these plans, especially for their deliveries. "On competition days, it will be complicated to get around Paris," he admitted. "There will obviously be both derogations, special rules for professionals", with "a consultation phase until the beginning of next year", he added.

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"Then, there will be an information campaign on how to anticipate the games, how to make sure that we have a little less travel (...) superfluous during the Games", and "to explain what happens during the Games: the plans, the exemptions, those who have the right to circulate", he detailed. "There will be particular attention, both in the derogations, and in the upstream communication, for professionals and for all those who supply you," added Clément Beaune to professionals in the sector.

The minister was also questioned by professionals on the expected increase in the tourist tax in Paris, to finance transport in Ile-de-France. "There was no perfect solution," he acknowledged, "someone had to pay" and "I don't think it was sustainable to have a Navigo pass that would have gone up to between 120 and 130 euros in the next four to five years," he explained. "The idea with the tourist tax, and when you compare it to other European metropolises, it was not very high, is that tourists contribute to the financing of additional public transport," he added, acknowledging: "I know that this is not trivial at all."