Social cleansing beneath the surface: Paris 2024’s dark truth
The slogan of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is ‘Games wide open’, which is aimed to foster a sense of inclusivity, universal brotherhood and the idea of peace among the nations of the globe.
But, in the midst of the glow and sparkle of the five-ringed sporting mega-event, one should not forget the plight of Paris’ homeless people, for whom dwellings to live in have been shut in most cases.
As the closing ceremony fast approaches and the curtain is set to be drawn on the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, one would do well to look back and acknowledge the voiceless, vulnerable Parisian populace who were displaced because of no fault of their own.
Paris’ police clear up camps for migrants and homeless people (Image source: Getty Images)
And this displacement drive was instigated by none other than the ones within the halls of political power in France, as a French law had been passed in March 2023 to evict squatters from Paris in the build-up to the Olympic Games.
With Paris 2024 on the brink of conclusion, the Sports Gazette takes a look at the dark underbelly of the Olympic Games even as the shinier side continues to enthral sports spectators around the world.
Dark truth of social cleansing beneath glow of Paris 2024
In April last year, the largest squat settlement in Paris – a disused cement factory housing around 400 migrants – was raided by police as the derelict establishment’s residents were driven out as part of a broader effort to cleanse the French capital before the global media, athletes and spectators arrived.
And law enforcement agencies had the backing of the French government as a law had been passed in the French parliament the previous month which gave security officials and police the stamp of authority to displace migrants and the working poor.
A report by the campaign group Le Revers de la Médaille (The Other Side of the Medal), found that there was an almost 40 percent uptick in encampment evictions in the 12 months leading up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The campaign director of the group, Antoine de Clerck, in an interview with the Sports Gazette, shed light on the dire situation that homeless people find themselves in when sporting mega-events roll around.
“People don’t know where they’re going. They don’t know what’s going to happen [to them],” he says when discussing the humanitarian cost of the social cleansing programme.
The glitz of the Olympics will go away, but problems for homeless people won’t apparently (Image source: Getty Images)
And, this displacement drive process is not unique to the French capital this time around, with several previous examples sticking out as a sore thumb in the annals of Olympic history.
Often, governments deny any connection whatsoever between the hosting of the Olympic Games in a particular city, and the accompanying social cleansing and gentrification drive.
De Clerck confirms this, saying, “The authorities say there is no link whatsoever to the Olympic Games.” But the truth of the matter is apparent to anyone who reads between the lines in such matters.
Past instances of social cleansing at the Olympic Games
David Goldblatt, who has written The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, observes that ahead of the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany, Roma people were detained and put inside prison camps.
Likewise, before the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games, homeless people were ousted from parks, small-time criminals were rounded up, and the most visible members of the notorious yakuza gangs were asked to go on a long holiday out of town to sanitise Tokyo’s reputation.
Pigeons are released during the Tokyo 1964 opening ceremony (Image source: Getty Images)
The military dictatorship running South Korea, when in 1988 the Summer Olympics came to Seoul, evicted a mind-boggling 720,000 people as the capital was beautified in anticipation of the sporting extravaganza.
Another example is the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, when more than 9,000 homeless people were arrested – often sans an apparent cause – and unhoused residents were given one-way bus tickets to the American states of Alabama and Florida.
And just eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro, close to 80,000 people were displaced to make space for developmental works and the construction of Olympic venues. “Entire favelas were just erased,” notes De Clerck.
Thus, what is unfolding in France as the Olympic Games go on in the French capital is not a completely new phenomenon, with scores of previous instances highlighting the ugly side of the Summer Olympics.
But, are there any lessons to draw from previous social cleansing exercises? And more importantly, is there a way to alleviate the aggrieved homeless masses in France?
What now for Paris’ displaced populace?
The five-ringed sporting giant will depart Paris for Los Angeles tonight, but what is in store for the displaced French masses now? Will they be rehabilitated in the City of Light or elsewhere?
De Clerck says that his campaign group hasn’t got any idea what the action plan is for the potential rehabilitation exercise of people who were driven out.
“The police and the government are not speaking to us anymore. So we don’t know, we don’t have any clue,” he states.
In addition, he also points to the fact that the social cleansing and displacement drive will be even worse in Los Angeles in four years’ time.
The next Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles (Image source: Getty Images)
“We are going to pass the Olympic torch on to Los Angeles. There it’s an even bigger problem as they have 45,000 homeless people.
“And they are going to host the FIFA World Cup in two years, and then the Olympic Games,” De Clerck notes.
With no end to the trials and tribulations of the Parisian homeless in sight, he lambasts the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for being too focused on the financial aspect of the Games.
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“The International Olympic Committee is a big business machine. They are sending us something very beautiful with sports, the idea of making peace and good values.
“That could be a very beautiful thing, but first and foremost it is a big business machine.”
And when sport’s powerful elite turn a blind eye to the plight of the disadvantaged sections of society, it is the duty of the spectators to rise in unison to safeguard the welfare and interests of those who are victims of someone else’s follies.
This is best encapsulated by the brilliant Olympic scholar and political scientist, Dr. Jules Boykoff, who says the following in his piece on this very topic.
“We need not succumb to oversimplified thinking: we can both cheer on the athletes who grace our screens and bring the world such joy while standing in solidarity alongside those who suffer pain from those very same Olympic Games.”
