The Paris Olympics opening ceremony was a stunning spectacle for global audiences, projecting an image of a proudly inclusive and festive France – even if the awkward truth is that, just a few weeks earlier, our country was on the verge of putting a racist far-right party into government. The ceremony’s various tableaux were presented as a triumphant display of our different cultures performed by artists of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds and genders, and fuelled by references to historical struggles against oppression.
But this unifying narrative introduced an Olympic and Paralympic Games that in reality are not all that inclusive.
A few days before the ceremony, Sounkamba Sylla, a French Muslim relay runner, was told that she would be banned from the event if she wore her headscarf. A compromise was finally found: she was allowed to wear a cap for the parade on the Seine – but her situation echoes a larger exclusion. France is the only Olympic participating country in the world to prohibit its female athletes from wearing hijabs.
France’s sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra wrongly invoked the principle of laïcité (secularism) in defence of the hijab ban, implying that French athletes are supposed to embody the public sector’s neutrality in matters of worship. “There is an essential principle in secularism: the neutrality of public service … Our athletes embody public service,” she said.
In fact laïcité obliges the state and its agents to be secular, and the state guarantees our freedom of belief. The government’s dishonest misinterpretation of the secularism principle leaves French Muslim athletes in a unique position: they are the only Muslims who cannot compete in these Olympics with their heads covered – in their own country.
This amounts to shocking “discrimination”, according to Amnesty International and other human rights organisations, which regard it as a “breach of multiple obligations under international human rights treaties”. It has also sparked outrage among several female athletes from other countries who are able to take part in the Olympics with their hijabs.
But the exclusion doesn’t take place only on the track or in the stadium. To make these Games happen, Paris had to undertake a programme of intense social cleansing.
According to an investigation by a collective named Le revers de la médaille (The other side of the coin), 12,545 people (including 3,434 minors) were evicted – some of them forcibly – across the Paris region between April 2023 and May 2024, which is a 38.5% increase on the 2021-22 period (twice as many as last year, and almost three times more than in 2021-22 for the minors). The group alleges that on top of evictions, “harassment” of communities living near the sites hosting Olympic events has been widespread.
Tightening security has become the pretext for a “high level of violence and abuse” by the police against sex workers and victims of human trafficking, particularly those whose administrative status in France may be precarious. According to Mediapart, the violence takes various forms: “The presence of police dogs, insults, chases through the undergrowth, forced removals from trucks and refusal to allow women to put their clothes back on.”
Many working-class neighbourhoods have been affected,including Aubervilliers, one of the poorest cities in France located in the banlieues, where part of the community gardens (which had been there for almost a century) were swallowed up by the construction of an Olympic swimming pool.
Another odious policy that has accompanied preparations for the Olympics and Paralympics is that homeless people have been hidden or driven away by such measures as the installation of anti-homeless urban furniture.
Almost 1,000 students were forced to vacate their university accommodation (provided by the official student services organisation) for police officers, firefighters and healthcare workers on duty during the Games. Many of them reported their shock at being met by utterly squalid conditions, including cockroaches, mould and mice. In addition to the filth, what is shocking is that it has taken the Olympics to expose the living conditions of students, despite repeated denunciation by their unions.
The reconfiguration of roads for the Games, meanwhile, carries severe consequences for public health – for example, blocking access to one of the largest maternity hospitals in the region. The authorities are now considering opening the reserved lanes for medical emergencies. I find it hard to understand how this was not the default setting.
The Olympics and Paralympics could have been an opportunity to address the fact that 91% of Paris Métro stations are inaccessible to disabled people. But instead this massive problem has simply been neglected.
The doubling of Métro fares (contrary to the bid proposal promise of free public transport), as well as the requirement to obtain a QR code to travel in certain areas of Paris, does not make transportation more inclusive. Many undocumented workers who provide delivery services from restaurants in the restricted zones will be unable to gain access to the precious Sésame card.
The surveillance extends well beyond QR codes. The legalisation of algorithmic surveillance, which allows for real-time behaviour analysis using AI to anticipate supposedly suspicious acts, is a “violation of the right to privacy”, according to Amnesty International. This system, fuelled by human biases against certain populations, will be amplified. Moreover, it will persist beyond the Olympic Games.
The majestic and captivating fable presented to the world during the opening ceremony barely conceals the many injustices on which these Olympic and Paralympic Games have been built. Paris shone brightly, showcasing its best face, but at what cost?
Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
