by On the eve of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris, the city for Paris and for tourists is a terrible obstacle course. The entire center of the French capital has been locked down by the police on the banks of the Seine.
Where I live outside the Olympic security zone in the eastern 11th arrondissement, the city is unusually quiet, even in late July, when crowds of residents usually rule the hills. les grandes vacancy – the long summer break.
It only takes seven minutes to board a Vélib, the rental bikes scattered around Paris, and pedal to the Olympic media center towards the central Marais district. A 15 minute walk later and I reach Paris city hall on foot without obstacles.
This is where the trouble begins for those who do not have security clearance.
A few tourists from Ukraine across the Seine hope for a metal barrier – one of 44,000 on the banks of the river, each manned by police, some wielding machine guns.
“We have a reservation in a restaurant above the river,” says Pavlo Shvts. “Can we cross?” he asks plaintively.
“Do you have a QR code? That can’t be done,” the French policeman replies in broken English, shrugging his shoulders in apology. Many officers have taken a few hours of lessons to pick up basic “english”, but in this case, it soon wears off.
The officer is not willing or able to tell them where they can cross the Seine on foot.
In fact, only a small number of bridges are still open to connect the Right to the Left Bank in a stretch from the Pont d’Austerlitz near the Bastille and the Pont d’Éna near the Eiffel Tower. The next one is a few hundred yards back thankfully.
I managed to get through thanks to my press pass but another British colleague is denied access when he fails to get his assembly pass. “But I used it this morning,” he said. “Sorry, you can’t go,” he is told.
Moving inside the security zone, the normally bustling Bistro Marguerite is closed due to lack of clients. Large glittering strips of what looks like gold tinsel can be seen on the banks of the Seine, and seats sit ready to accommodate the 100,000 participants who paid for the opening ceremony on 26 July.
At the Bistro Les Deux Théâtres on the corner of Avenue Victoria, 30-year-old waiter Edouard Martin has few complaints. “We are lucky. All our competitors in Place du Châtelêt have been closed since July 18, so our customers are being misled. The next bridge is open at the Eiffel Tower. So we traded quickly last week.”
However, a yard further from the river, it’s a different story.
“There has been a huge drop in business over the last two weeks. We usually serve 3,000 customers at this time but right now it’s less than half that,” says Mamadou Gninjue, 32, a waiter at Compose cafe. “I have the same pay but the boss is unhappy. We’re not even sure if we’ll open tomorrow at all.”
Next door at La Grande Colette, manager Vladislav Ciobanu, 37, says: “The Parisians went as usual but the tourists didn’t pick up the slack. We have a few busy periods but few periods in between. Hopefully, once the opening ceremony is over, things will pick up. But with hotel occupancy rates – down 60 per cent compared to last year – I’m not really optimistic.”
Hotels were charging three times the going rate for a room earlier this year but had to triple prices to fill vacancies.
Frank Delvau, chairman of the Union of Hotel and Restaurant Owners in the Paris region, has said that establishments in the security zone around the Seine have registered an income drop of up to 80 percent in the past week compared to the same period in 2023.
“We didn’t think it would be this big.” The barriers in central Paris made customers feel like they were “in a zoo”, he complained.
Meanwhile, Parisians hoping to make a mint by renting out their pads on Airbnb have flooded the market, driving up prices.
Fréd Caplan, 48, a web designer, says: “The restaurants are empty, the terraces are empty. The Airbnbs in my condominium are empty. Three quarters of my neighbors are left with everyone else. Paris seems abandoned. Clearly, this is not the efficiency that was expected; where are the 15 million tourists?”
Fred is not alone in complaining. In France, râler, a moan, which was already a national sport; the Olympics have taken discipline to another level.
But there is another breed of Parisian, the sports lover, who sees things very differently.
“I only have one thing to complain about, and that’s the people who are crying!” said Julien Dubois, a friend who runs a car business. “I can’t give this bashing to the Olympics in Paris: it makes me mad.”
“Paris has changed a lot since the Olympics, all the scaffolding is gone, the bike lanes are there, the metro system is excellent. Most of the restrictions will go away after the opening ceremony.”
Julien was at the Israel-Mali football match at the Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday night. “The atmosphere was great,” he says. “This is a once in a lifetime experience. Vive les Jeux Olympiques!”
