“The Olympics Mustn’t Gentrify Paris”
The Olympics are coming to Paris in 2024, with Airbnb as an official sponsor. Communist deputy mayor Ian Brossat told us why development projects for the Games mustn’t be used to drive out working-class residents — and how city hall is fighting to defend social housing.
Paris, France. (Kerry Loggins / Flickr)
On March 15, France goes to the polls in the first round of municipal elections taking place across the country. In Paris, the administration bidding for reelection unites the Parti Socialiste (PS), represented by Anne Hidalgo (mayor since 2014), and the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), represented by her deputy mayor Ian Brossat.
The election in the capital has been noted internationally mostly for the release of a sex tape trying to undermine Emmanuel Macron’s candidate Benjamin Griveaux. Yet more locally, the election is also about the PS-PCF duo’s record — including their promise to stop Airbnb from continuing to push up rents and their plans for the Olympic Games, due to be held in Paris in 2024.
A few weeks ahead of the vote, Brossat sat down with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Ethan Earle to discuss the possibility of renewed rapprochement on the French left, the Paris administration’s efforts to defend social housing, and how it plans to ensure the 2024 Olympics won’t act as a further drive to gentrification.
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