PARIS: France is facing a bill of almost nine billion euros for hosting the Paris Olympics but top officials say the financial fallout could be more “psychological” than economic.
Ahead of the July 26 opening of the Games, ministers and financial observers are juggling the figures to estimate the costs and benefits of the sporting spectacle.
So far, French authorities are predicting a cost of nearly nine billion euros ($9.5 billion) for the Paris Games, although the official figure will take time to confirm.
Costs are always difficult to predict or confirm.
The Tokyo Olympics, delayed for a year until 2021 because of Covid-19, cost about $12.9 billion, Japan’s Audit Board has been reported as saying.
Greece’s finance ministry estimates that the 2004 Athens Games cost $9.1 billion — although some independent estimates are closer to $15 billion. London 2012 cost up to $15 billion.
The Paris organizing committee, boosted by ticket sales, sponsors and International Olympic Committee (IOC) funds, has a budget of about 4.4 billion euros and a similar figure has gone to the Solideo public company that has built the Olympic village north of the French capital.
But the final bill will depend on spending on Olympic bonuses for metro drivers, police and emergency services, as well as the general cost of security.
The government this week alloted another 33 million euros to Paralympics organizers who are struggling with ticket sales.
The government and local authorities have so far committed about 2.4 billion euros to the Paris Olympics, mainly for construction. But the head of the government’s Court of Accounts has estimated that the final state cost could be up to five billion euros.
Bruno Cavalier, chief economist for Oddo BHF financial services group, said the “direct state involvement is relatively limited.” He added that the Olympics will not “radically change” France’s public debt of about $3.2 trillion.
According to the Center for Law and Economy of Sport (CDES), which has been monitoring the Paris Games for the IOC and the Paris 2024 organizers, the event will produce between 6.7 billion and 11.1 billion euros in economic benefits for the Paris region.
But it added that these benefits would be spread over 20 years.
In February, the Asteres consultancy estimated that the Games would bring in 5.3 billion euros in extra tax and social revenues.
Deutsche Bank said in a study this month that “host nations of the Olympics or FIFA World Cups rarely earn positive economic or even social returns on what are often massive and publicly-funded investment sprees on new stadiums and public infrastructure.”
It said that even the short-term boost to investment and employment was “limited” unless the host country is going through a recession.
For Bank of France governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau, the Paris Olympics will have more of a “psychological” impact than economic.
But he said if France can improve its image around the world through the Games, then it could eventually expect new investment.
In the short-term some companies are already seeking to cash in.
Le Slip Francais, an underwear maker, is making thousands of extra underpants, swimming costumes, pyjamas and other goods in the Olympic colors, according to its managing director Lea Marie.
“It has created work in our factories” and for the company’s 80 sub-contractors, she said.
Companies linked to the Olympic building spree have also benefited.
According to the CDES, construction and refurbishing companies expect to increase revenues by up to three billion euros from the Olympics.
Tourism expects to earn up to 3.6 billion euros from the 15 million visitors predicted for the Games, including two million from abroad.
Oddo BHF predicted that media, leisure, drinks and alcohol, consumer goods and transport companies would all benefit from the Games.
France makes multibillion-euro gamble on Olympic gold
https://arab.news/9yqj7
France makes multibillion-euro gamble on Olympic gold
- Ahead of the July 26 opening of the Games, ministers and financial observers are juggling the figures to estimate the costs and benefits of the sporting spectacle
Two detained after attack outside Israeli embassy in Belgrade
The assailant, whom the police identified as being a “convert” to Islam, shot a Serbian police officer in the neck with a crossbow while he was on duty in front of the embassy early Saturday.
The attacker was shot and killed by the officer.
The assailant, from Mladenovac, near Belgrade, lived in Novi Pazar, a historical and political center of Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority, police said.
Authorities said a number of people known to the security services were suspected of being linked to the attack.
“Searches were conducted at several locations in Serbia, dozens of people were questioned,” Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told the state-run RTS broadcaster on Sunday.
The prosecutors will establish whether they were linked with the “targeted terrorist attack,” he added.
Two men were remanded in custody, the minister said.
Security was stepped up to the highest level throughout the country and the police operation was continuing, Dacic added.
“It is an operation against extremists and terrorists, people directly involved in the attack, but... also against those for whom there are indications they might belong to terrorist groups,” he said.
Police have traced the attacker’s movement in Belgrade, where he arrived early Saturday, saying he headed to the synagogue before the attack, but said he was deterred by a high police presence.
After that he proceeded to the Israeli embassy.
“From that it is clear what the main and possible targets were,” Dacic said.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Saturday thanked Serbian authorities for “strong support and cooperation following the attempted terror act.”
“Terrorism cannot be tolerated!” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The Israeli ambassador to Serbia, Yahel Vilan, on Sunday visited the wounded officer in a Belgrade hospital.
The 34-year-old policeman underwent an operation to remove an arrow from his neck and was in stable condition, a doctor said.
Serbia has continued arms sales to Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which claimed 1,195 lives, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Delhi airport accident raises concerns over India's infrastructure drive
- About $532 billion in new infrastructure will become operational in the next 2 years in India
- Modernizing infrastructure was key part of PM Modi’s campaign during this year’s election
NEW DELHI: The recent deadly roof collapse at New Delhi's main airport was the latest in a series of construction safety incidents in the country, triggering concerns over India’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure drive.
A portion of a canopy and pillars at a departure terminal in the Indira Gandhi International Airport, one of the country’s busiest, collapsed following heavy rain on Friday morning, killing at least one person and injuring several others.
The collapse also caused a temporary suspension of operations at the airport’s Terminal 1, which is used for domestic flights, impacting the travel plans of thousands of people.
It joins a growing list of infrastructure incidents in India in recent years that have raised questions about the rapid pace of mega-development projects in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Narayan Moorthy, a Delhi-based architect, blamed it on many factors, including “slipshod work culture,” frequent use of poor-quality materials, “reckless hurry towards the end of projects so that some politician can inaugurate it on a pre-decided and politically significant date,” and lack of maintenance after construction.
“This whole cocktail comes together to result in unmitigated disasters, like the collapsed airport roof in Delhi that killed one hapless soul and injured many others … Similar is the case of the roof of the brand-new Jabalpur airport that thankfully had no human casualties but exposes our systemic rot,” he told Arab News.
“We have much to be ashamed of in the quality of our supposedly ‘world-class’ constructions.”
A day before the Delhi accident, a part of the canopy of Jabalpur airport in Rajasthan collapsed under heavy rains, while on Saturday, a canopy fell down at the passenger pickup area at Rajkot airport in Gujarat.
In the eastern state of Bihar, four bridges also recently collapsed and an $80 billion underpass in Delhi, which was inaugurated just ahead of India’s hosting of the G20 summit last year, has been waterlogged for several days, disrupting traffic in Delhi’s main thoroughfare.
Under Modi’s building spree, about 44.4 trillion rupees ($532 billion) in new infrastructure will become operational over the next two years, according to Bloomberg Economics.
Modi has presided over many ribbon-cutting ceremonies of these projects, as modernizing infrastructure was a key part of his campaign during this year’s national election, when he won a third term as India’s premier. Over the past decade, his government said it has built 80 new airports, upgraded railways and expanded highways by thousands of kilometers.
The projects have been criticized by India’s opposition leaders, with Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Indian National Congress party, among the latest to accuse Modi’s government of corruption following Friday’s incident.
“Corruption and criminal negligence is responsible for the collapse of shoddy infrastructure falling like a deck of cards, in the past 10 years of Modi Govt,” Kharge wrote on X.
Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, highlighted how infrastructure was “turned into a vote bank ploy” under Modi’s government at an unmatched level.
“While the government might have good intent to build infrastructure at a rapid pace to match the requirements of a growing nation, (it) is done without adequate attention to their up-keeping, reliable maintenance and auditing,” Sahoo told Arab News.
“Never before has the country witnessed a kind of infrastructure blitz largely timed before the elections,” he added. “In a sense, infrastructure fits into populist narratives of taking India to the comity of great powers. However, the recent incidents badly expose India’s ambition and capabilities.”
Prof. A.K. Gosain, a civil engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi said one of the major reasons for infrastructural failures can be traced back to “falling quality” of construction, adding that “there is no accountability at the top,” leaving people at the lower levels as scapegoats whenever problems arise.
Anuj Srivastava, an architect from the School of Planning and Architecture in the Indian capital and a veteran of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army, also highlighted the lack of maintenance and accountability in India’s infrastructure projects and the indifference toward the environment amid a rapidly changing climate.
“The reason for accidents and collapse of infrastructure is the lack of concern for the environment and the haste in planning and executing the project, proving the adage ‘haste makes waste’,” Srivastava told Arab News.
“Infrastructure disaster damages India’s reputation in the world. In the unseemly haste to build ‘world-class infrastructure’ in a hurry and its subsequent collapse, irreparable damage is being caused to India’s reputation.”
Taliban delegation attends UN-led meeting in Qatar on Afghanistan, with women excluded
- The two-day meeting is the third UN-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in the Qatari capital of Doha
ISLAMABAD: A Taliban delegation on Sunday attended a United Nations-led meeting in Qatar on Afghanistan after organizers said women would be excluded from the gathering.
The two-day meeting is the third UN-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the Taliban government who leads its delegation, wrote on social media platform X that the delegation met with representatives from countries including Russia, India and Uzbekistan on the sidelines of the meeting.
The Taliban were not invited to the first meeting, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second one in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that the Taliban be treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.
The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as US and NATO forces were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country following two decades of war. No country has officially recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government, and the UN has said recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.
Mujahid on Saturday in the capital, Kabul, told reporters the delegation was going to Doha “to seek understanding and resolve issues.”
“We urge all countries not to abandon the Afghan people in difficult times, and actively participate in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and economic strengthening,” he said.
He said they would discuss issues including international restrictions imposed on Afghanistan’s financial and banking system, challenges in growing the private sector and government actions against drug trafficking.
Earlier, the United Nations’ top official in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, defended the failure to include Afghan women in the meeting in Doha, insisting that demands for women’s rights are certain to be raised.
Russia claims two more east Ukrainian villages
- Moscow has claimed new villages in the east of Ukraine regularly for weeks, as outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces struggle to hold them back
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday claimed two more east Ukrainian villages as its forces have had the upper hand over Kyiv on the battlefield for months.
Moscow has claimed new villages in the east of Ukraine regularly for weeks, as outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces struggle to hold them back.
Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had “liberated the settlement” of Novooleksandrivka as the Russian army pushes further westwards into the Donetsk region.
The village — which lies north-west of occupied Ocheretyne — is now the most western point of the region that Moscow holds.
Moscow also said its forces captured the small village of Spirne, further north in the Donetsk region near the border with the neighboring Lugansk region.
Moscow’s Ukraine offensive has dragged on for nearly two and a half years.
French President Emmanuel Macron casts his vote in first round of surprise elections he called for
- Two rounds of voting will determine who will be prime minister and which party controls the National Assembly. Macron risks sharing power with parties opposed to most of his policies
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron has voted Sunday in the first round of surprise elections he called for just three weeks ago.
The centrist leader placed a huge gamble in dissolving the lower house of parliament after major gains for the far right in European elections in early June. Two rounds of voting will determine who will be prime minister and which party controls the National Assembly.
Macron risks sharing power with parties opposed to most of his policies.
The vote takes place during the traditional first week of summer vacation in France, and absentee ballot requests were at least five times higher than in the 2022 elections.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
PARIS: Voters across mainland France have been casting ballots Sunday in the first round of an exceptional parliamentary election that could put France’s government in the hands of nationalist, far-right parties for the first time since the Nazi era.
The outcome of the two-round election, which will wrap up July 7, could impact European financial markets, Western support for Ukraine, and how France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force are managed.
Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and economic concerns, as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, which they see as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party has tapped and fueled that discontent, notably via online platforms like TikTok, and dominated all preelection opinion polls.
A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, is also posing a challenge to the pro-business Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic.
There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament, during the two-round voting.
Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s resurgent National Rally, cast her ballot in her party’s stronghold in northern France on Sunday.
Turnout at midday at the first round stood at 25.9 percent according to interior ministry figures, which is higher from the 2022 legislative elections at this time of the day. It was 18.43 percent at midday two years ago.
After a blitz campaign marred by rising hate speech, voting began early in France’s overseas territories, and polling stations opened in mainland France at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) Sunday. The first polling projections are expected at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), when the final polling stations close, and early official results are expected later Sunday night.
The voting is taking place during the traditional first week of summer vacation in the country, and absentee ballot requests were at least five times higher than in the 2022 elections, according to figures from the interior ministry.
Voters who turned out in person at a Paris polling station on Sunday had issues from immigration to inflation and the rising cost of living on their minds as the country has grown more divided between the far right and far left blocs with a deeply unpopular and weakened president in the political center.
“People don’t like what has been happening,” said Cynthia Justine, a 44-year-old voter in Paris. “People feel they’ve lost a lot in recent years. People are angry. I am angry.”
She added that with “the rising hate speech,” it was necessary for people to express their frustrations with those holding and seeking power and cast their ballots.
“It is important for me because I am a woman and we haven’t always had the right to vote,” Justin said. “Because I am a Black woman, it’s even more important. A lot is at stake on this day.”
Pierre Leclaer, a 78-year-old retiree, said he cast his ballot for the simple reason of “trying to avoid the worst,” which for him is “a government that is from the far right, populist, not liberal and not very Republican.”
Macron called the early election after his party was trounced in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally, which has historic ties to racism and antisemitism and is hostile toward France’s Muslim community. It was an audacious gamble that French voters who were complacent about the European Union election would be jolted into turning out for moderate forces in a national election to keep the far right out of power.
Instead, preelection polls suggest that the National Rally is gaining support and has a chance at winning a parliamentary majority. In that scenario, Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in an awkward power-sharing system known as “cohabitation.”
In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls already closed at 5 p.m. local time due to an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew that authorities on the archipelago have extended until July 8.
Nine people died during a two-week-long unrest in New Caledonia, where the Indigenous Kanak people have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific territory in 1853. Violence flared on May 13 in response to attempts by Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which Kanaks feared would further marginalize them.
Voters in France’s other overseas territories from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, French Polynesia and those voting in offices opened by embassies and consular posts across the Americas cast their ballots on Saturday.
While Macron has said he won’t step down before his presidential term expires in 2027, cohabitation would weaken him at home and on the world stage.
The results of the first round will give a picture of overall voter sentiment, but not necessarily of the overall makeup of the next National Assembly. Predictions are extremely difficult because of the complicated voting system, and because parties will work between the two rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others.
In the past such tactical maneuvers helped keep far-right candidates from power. But now support for Le Pen’s party has spread deep and wide.
Bardella, who has no governing experience, says he would use the powers of prime minister to stop Macron from continuing to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine for the war with Russia. His party has historical ties to Russia.
The party has also questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France, and wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality. Critics say this undermines fundamental human rights and is a threat to France’s democratic ideals.
Meanwhile, huge public spending promises by the National Rally and especially the left-wing coalition have shaken markets and ignited worries about France’s heavy debt, already criticized by EU watchdogs.
