The 2024 Summer Olympics Are Approaching, But Paris Has A Lot To Do

With less than nine months to go until the opening ceremony at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the French capital is engaged in a race against time to get things ready.

There is the bedbug panic, with Paris looking to eliminate the unwelcome visitors, in addition to street vendors and homeless people.

While the future of the Olympic Village is a key question, concerns have also been raised over France banning its athletes from wearing hijabs. Here are all the challenges facing Paris.

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Key Problems Facing The City Of Light Ahead Of Olympics

Banning Traditional Bouquinistes

Authorities want to stop people from selling on the streets. Among businesses at risk are the bouquinistes, the booksellers who have long been offering their wares from the wooden stalls along the banks of the Seine. Police have said the stalls could pose a bomb threat.

Transferring Homeless People Elsewhere

Around half of the country’s 200,000 homeless people live on the streets or in shelters in Paris and the surrounding Ile-de-France region, where they could benefit from better job opportunities and access to charities. But France has been accelerating plans to transfer them to other cities.

Shielding Paris’s Image From Bedbugs

While numbers of bedbugs have been increasing for several years in the French capital, this summer’s annual spike is the highest yet. And it got traction on social media, with unconfirmed reports claiming to show the insects in beds at home, on public transport and even in cinemas.

Putting Olympic Village To Good Use

The new Olympic Village in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis is set to host 22,500 Olympians and Paralympians during the Games. Authorities have insisted the village will be sustainable and environmentally friendly, but community groups are worried about pollution.

Wearing Of Religious Symbols

It’s the fifth and not the last challenge facing Paris 2024. The approaching Olympics have seen a reemergence of the decades-old debate over the wearing of religious symbols, in particular veils, in French public life which is constitutionally secular.

France will not allow its athletes to wear hijabs, while the International Olympic Committee has said athletes can were a veil if they wish in the Olympic Village. Each sport’s federation is in charge of deciding the rules for its own event.