The 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics held in Paris cost French taxpayers just under €6 billion ($6.9 billion), according to an “initial estimate” by the national auditing body, the Cour de Comptes, released on Monday.
It is the first time actual figures have been announced, with the auditors saying there would be “heightened interest” in them as France prepares to host the Winter Olympics in five years’ time.
What figures did the auditing body give?
According to the report from the Cours de Comptes, the organization of the two Games cost €2.77 billion, including €1.4 billion spent on security, with measures including the presence of some 30,000 police officers and gendarmes in Paris streets every day.
Infrastructure projects linked to the Games, which ran from July 26 to August 11 and August 28 to Septermber 8 respectively, cost a further €3.19 billion, the auditors said.
The president of the auditing body, Pierre Moscovici, had said said in 2024 that the sporting events would cost the state “three, maybe four, five billion euros.”
A more detailed report will be published in October, as other costs are not yet known, and another report on the legacy of the Games will be issued in 2026.
The Cour de Comptes added that the figures did not include “the positive and negative impact the Games had on economic activity” owing to a lack of concrete information.
It said that the Games were “indisputably a success with the public and the media” whatever economic consequences they did have.
Criticism from organizers
Tony Estanguet, who led the organizing committee, questioned the estimates.
“Through its methodological choices, the Cour has in fact declined to examine the only question that would meaningfully inform public debate: How much public money would have been saved if the Games had not been held in Paris?” he wrote in comments attached to the report.
“It is undeniable that this amount would be far less than the €6 billion currently cited by the Cour. The organizing committee, as it already stated during the contradictory procedure, estimates that this figure does not exceed €2 billion, while the expected economic benefits of the Games are said to represent three to five times that amount,” he added.
Among other things, the organizers maintained that it was not valid to attribute some spending that predated the Games and continued afterward to the events.
They also said it was not jusified to attribute major investments in unrelated projects launched long before the Games, to the Olympics and Paralympics.
Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah
