Houria looked out over the River Seine from her run-down social-housing building in Saint-Ouen, north of Paris. A few hundred metres from her subsiding block of flats, behind a secure fence, stood the glittering new buildings of the Olympic Village, which were completed last week and will now be furnished to accommodate more than 14,000 athletes for this year’s Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“It’s a showcase for our town and that’s important,” said Houria, 63, who had lived in the close-knit, working-class area all her life after her father, a welder, moved from Algeria in the 1960s. A former school support worker for children with special needs, Houria will make history when she is expected to be one of the first local residents to move into the Olympic Village a year after the games. The village will be transformed into homes for about 6,000 people, including a significant amount of social housing, as well as offices for 6,000 workers. The nearby crumbling local flats Houria has lived in for 50 years will be demolished and rebuilt.
