“Don’t leave, that would be stupid!” : Anne Hidalgo's appeal to Parisians tempted to flee the capital during the Olympics

The mayor of Paris took advantage of the inauguration of the Adidas Arena Porte de la Chapelle to ask Parisians to stay in the capital during the Games. MAXPPP – Bruno Levesque

On the occasion of the inauguration this Sunday, February 11 of the Arena Porte de la Chapelle, which will host Olympic events this summer, the socialist mayor of Paris urged Parisians to stay for the Olympic Games. 

During the Olympic Games, "Paris is going to be magnificent, don't leave Paris, that would be bullshit!", launched this Sunday, February 11 the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo inaugurating the Arena Porte de la Chapelle which will host Olympic events this summer.

"We're going to vibe together"

"We're going to vibrate together (…) it's going to be incredible!", promised the councilor from the floor of this new room, property of the Paris town hall, and which has 8,000 seats in basketball configuration. "It's a bit like the beginning of the beginning of the magic of the Olympics", s' is she enthusiastic.

Also present this Sunday, the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, for her part praised “the impetus that the Olympic Games can give to transformations”, in allusion to the La Chapelle district, one of the most deprived in Paris. During the Olympics, badminton and rhythmic gymnastics events will take place there.

Doubts and constraints

Between July 26 and August 11, the Olympic Games will notably generate numerous traffic restrictions in the city, where doubts and questions remain about the organization of the event and the constraints it will create, less than six months before the start of the tests.

Just before the arrival of the mayor of Paris for a visit to the building, a demonstration of undocumented immigrants "No papers, no OJ'" took place briefly on the square of this new facility called "Adidas Arena" under a naming contract.

"Four years of dreaming about it, four years of working on it", rejoiced Nicolas Dupeux, general director of the ;#39;Arena, also operator of the Accor Arena in Bercy and the Bataclan. Sunday evening, the floor of this room was inaugurated by its resident club, Paris Basketball, which will meet Saint-Quentin.