Will the 2024 Olympics change the face of Paris' troubled Saint-Denis?

Less than 500 meters from the Stade de France - the vibrant center of the Paris Olympics - and the blighted Frank-Moisin housing complex, plagued by poverty and crime. Samia Ashui, a secretary living in one of the gray houses plagued by drug trafficking, doesn't have a ticket to the Olympics. Instead, she will listen to the applause and cheers spreading across the canal.

Despite its name, the Paris Olympics will be held mostly in Saint-Saint-Denis, on the other side of the peripheral road separating the French capital from one of the poorest and best-known suburbs known as the banlieues. The densely populated working-class department north of Paris is home to the Games' four major sports venues, the Olympic Village and other key Olympic venues.

Paris' bid to host the Games - which will run from July 26 to August 11 - was firmly based on the regeneration of the area, which has absorbed waves of immigration and has the youngest population in the country. A third of the 1.6 million people living here live below the poverty line. France hopes not only to use the Olympics to accelerate the ongoing restructuring, but also to change the filigree of Saint-Saint-Denis, which has taken the form of an overcrowded collection of crime-ridden ghettos that sprang up during the 2005 suburban riots.

The area's reputation was further damaged by the failure of the 2022 Champions League final, when soccer fans were attacked and robbed on their way to the Stade de France. Mohammed Gnabaly is relentlessly positive about the possibility of Saint-Saint-Denis being transformed by the Olympics. The mayor of Ile Saint-Denis, the narrow island on the Seine River where part of the Olympic village was built, is "interested" in making the Olympics "the people's Games." Gnabaly is proud that his small municipality has purchased 7,000 tickets, for almost all its residents.

The island, which has its share of dingy houses, is being overturned by construction work for the Olympics. But the mayor is determined to make the most of the Games, even though City Hall was looted when riots broke out again last June in France's poor suburbs after police shot and killed a teenager on a road near Paris. "We've been working on this for three years," Gnabali said, proud that the island is also home to the Games' "Africa Station" - a fan zone dedicated to African culture and sports. "We are affected (by all these works) but through this we become the heart of the reactor," the mayor insisted. "We will not be left out of the Games."

His optimism, however, is not shared by every resident of Saint-Saint-Denis. "There are two extreme views here," says Cécile Gintrac of the local policing advocacy group Vigiance JO. "One part of Paris will be a big party, while others won't be able to go to work or get around because of restrictions and roads making traffic difficult because of the Olympics." Moussa Sila, a 45-year-old delivery driver who lives in the residential neighborhood of Franck Moisin, which will also be substantially renovated, says just thinking about it gives him a cold sweat. "It will be impossible to move around," he says.

Nowadays, Saint-Saint-Denis, like the rest of the region, is seeing more scaffolding and cranes building entire new neighborhoods. The Olympics are part of a long-term effort to bring attention to the department, which began with the symbolic decision to build a stadium on the Saint-Saint-Denis site that hosted the 1998 World Cup, which the French multinational rainbow team successfully won. High real estate prices in Paris and the massive extension of its metro to Saint-Saint-Denis - the largest infrastructure project in Europe - have made the department attractive to investors. Companies such as Tesla are moving their French headquarters to its former industrial areas, where factories have long since closed.

"We need to find a second wind for Saint-Saint-Denis so that jobs stay here," said Isabelle Vallenne, vice-chairwoman of Solideo, the government body in charge of Olympic projects. In addition, the soft housing of Saint-Saint-Denis must be developed," she added.

Most of the 4.5-billion-euro games construction budget will be spent in this area, with the department emerging as the big winner, receiving about 80% of the 1.7 billion euros in public funds. While private investment is difficult to estimate, it probably won't deviate much from that figure.

The Olympic Village, the largest construction project of the Games, will be a whole new ecological neighborhood and will be home to 14,250 athletes and their support team, as well as 6,000 Paralympians. Built on the site of a former industrial area along the River Seine, it is architecturally diverse and many of the buildings face the river. All buildings up to eight stories are constructed of wood, and all energy in the village is derived from heat pumps and renewable energy. Once the Paralympic Games are over, the village will become a mixed neighborhood of apartments and offices, with the first installment of 6,000 new residents as early as early next year, followed by a similar number of jobs.

Unlike previous Games, such as London, where organizers were accused of "public redevelopment on an industrial scale" and failing to deliver on promises to local residents, Solideo's Valanthene said they insisted that developers "meet (local) housing needs first and foremost." So 25-40% of the apartments, depending on the three municipalities covered by the Olympic Village, will be set aside for social housing, with the rest of the rentals offered at "affordable" rates through half-day housing organizations.

Another major advantage of Saint-Denis is the number of new swimming pools it desperately needs. The most spectacular of these is the Olympic Sports Complex with swimming pools, a beautiful curvilinear wooden building opposite the Stade de France, where medals will be awarded for diving, water polo, and artistic swimming. It also features the main Olympic pool, which will be dismantled and split in half after the Games, as well as a new training pool. The organizers are also assisting in funding the construction of two other pools.

Olympic venues are popping up in Saint-Denis like confetti, and the small town of Duni is likely to undergo changes after the Games. The population of Duni is expected to grow by a third due to construction on a site inherited from the "media cluster" of the Olympic Games. Previously, the town was not well served by public transport, but now it is using the Games to diversify its housing stock, 77% of which is social housing - the highest rate in France. One third of the 1,400 new homes will be allocated to assist with housing acquisition.

The young mayor of Duni, Quentin Gezel, says that many of his friends, "like me, born in Duni, have been forced to leave because buying or renting here is impossible (their incomes are too high for social housing), and they would prefer to stay close to their families." Another more subtle transformation is likely to be a series of new pedestrian bridges connecting areas that have been divided for years by major roads and railway arteries running through the department. Near the Frank-Mouazen housing complex, a pedestrian bridge for walkers and cyclists is being built over the Saint-Denis canal to the Stade de France, replacing an old and unreliable wheeled bridge and steep pedestrian crossings. "It's very difficult to cross it now," says Karen, a mother of three. "You have to fold up the stroller and carry the child in your arms. So this is really wonderful, a real plus for the area."

They have been talking about the long-awaited bridge for many years, but the Games influenced its construction and covered two-thirds of its cost of 10.5 million euros.

The Olympic Games have become a "turning point that accelerated the transformation" of the department, says the socialist head of the Saint-Denis board, Stéphane Troussel. "We were able to implement a huge amount of infrastructure, housing, roads, and bridges in record time," he said.

However, there are doubts about the jobs that the Olympic Games promised to create in the department, where the unemployment rate is 10.4%, which is almost a third higher than the national average. "The Games are hiring - find a job!" was the slogan on a flyer for the Olympic job fair near Charles de Gaulle Airport in December. "I've been to many of them, and it was all the same," says Fuad Yusufi, walking between the booths in search of warehouse workers and bakers. "These are definitely not the companies you would want to work for, and often they pay poorly."

Stefan Laurent, a 47-year-old man looking for a "job quickly," left another job fair in Saint-Denis with an offer to undergo training for a security position, which is very much needed for the Games. According to officials, around 180,000 people will be working at the Games, but most of them will be on short-term contracts, such as the 6,000 people hired by Sodexo for catering in the Olympic Village.

“We must be honest, there is likely some discrepancy between the expectations placed on the Games and the level of unemployment and instability that we have,” says Bernard Thibault, former leader of the CGT union, who is part of the Olympic committee.

Local companies also benefited by securing contracts worth 330 million euros, according to a study by Saint-Denis Boutin. However, others doubt whether the economic benefits of the Olympic Games have reached ordinary people. "We are among the winners," says Mehdi Oureziifi from the non-profit organization Services Persos, which works on job reintegration programs and received part of the laundry contract for the Olympic Village. "But overall, local companies and job reintegration programs are disappointed" due to the expectations surrounding the Olympic Games, he says.

However, aside from the economic and infrastructural benefits, one of the most important legacies of the Olympic Games may be how Saint-Denis is perceived. The police have already intensified operations against drug dealers, street vendors, and others "occupying public spaces," and a large-scale security operation is planned for the duration of the Games. However, after a police station was attacked last week following the death of a young man during a police chase, and the head of the Mongolian delegation was robbed of jewelry worth nearly 600,000 euros on the way to a security committee meeting in October, it is difficult to shake off the old negative perception.

Welcoming guests from around the world this summer, Saint-Denis hopes to write a new chapter in its history, one that will highlight the diversity and potential of the area rather than its crime and occasional riots. Reflecting on the Frank Moizan housing complex, Karen prays that "visibility" will benefit the entire neighborhood. "I hope it will be well organized because if it resembles football (the chaotic scenes before the 2022 Champions League final), Saint-Denis's reputation will fall again."