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MAP: Where to find the free fan zones in Paris for the 2024 Olympics

The city of Paris has released plans for free fan zones, which are intended to allow everyone in the city to enjoy and participate in the celebration of the 2024 Olympic Games.

Published: 24 July 2023 16:37 CEST
MAP: Where to find the free fan zones in Paris for the 2024 Olympics
The entrance of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics (Cojo) headquarters (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

If you were unable to get tickets for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, there will still be plenty of free opportunities to take part in the festivities.

The Paris deputy mayor in charge of sport, Pierre Rabadan, has announced that the city will offer 23 fan zones, with at least one in each of the city’s arrondissements (excluding the 7th, where the arrondissement mayor didn’t want one). 

“Our goal is to make the event accessible to everyone, including those who did not get tickets to watch the competitions in person”, he told Le Parisien. 

Graphic: Paris Olympic Organising Committee and Paris Town Hall

Several emblematic sites across the city will be turned into fan zones, including the Hôtel de Ville in the 4th arrondissement and the Quartier Jeunes just beside the Louvre Museum. 

The annual Paris Plages will go ahead during the summer of 2024 as well, with the banks of the Seine and the Bassin de la Villette decorated for the Olympics and transformed into free fan zones. 

READ MORE: Hotels, tickets and scams: What to know about visiting Paris for the 2024 Olympics

Two of the sites – Trocadero and Parc de la Villette – will be run by the Olympic Organising Committe and the Club France (respectively). At Trocadero, the Champions Park will offer daily events for medallists to meet the public and the ‘Club France’ zone in the north of the city will be the centre for cheering on Team France and meeting French athletes.

Many of the remaining fan zones across the city will be held in local town halls or community centres, with some hosting special themes and offering other cultural activities aside from streaming the Games. 

For instance, the 13th arrondissement will aim their programming toward families with children, while the mayor of the 15th arrondissement, Philippe Goujon, told Le Parisien they hoped to add games, like table tennis, into the mix. 

“These venues will be open to all, and entirely free of charge. The average capacity will be around 500 people at any one time”, Rabadan said.

It is possible that other sites will be able to accompany larger crowds, but this will be determined at a later date by local law enforcement.

The fan zones will likely open July 25th or 26th (right before the Opening Ceremony) but this has not been confirmed yet. They are set to remain open until the end of the Paralympic Games. 

Rabadan said that the city will make available a programme with details for each site in September. 

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COST OF LIVING

What is considered a good salary in Paris?

The higher-paying jobs are heavily concentrated in the French capital, but set against that is the high cost of living - especially the cost of renting or buying a home. So what is considered a 'high-earner' in Paris?

Published: 25 June 2024 16:51 CEST
What is considered a good salary in Paris?

Centrist Renaissance candidate Sylvain Maillard, running for re-election in France’s snap parliamentary elections, was trying to highlight the high cost of living in the capital in a debate on RMC Radio 

“You have extremely expensive rents [in Paris], between €1,500 and €1,700, and then there are all the charges and taxes to pay,” he said.

But what most people seized on was his comment that anyone earning €4,000 a month after tax would not be considered rich in Paris – he predictably was accused of being out of touch with French people’s lives.

There’s no doubt that €4,000 a month is good salary that most people would be happy with – but how much do you need to earn to be considered ‘rich’ in Paris?

National averages

Earlier this year, the independent Observatoire des Inégalités calculated poverty and wealth levels in France.

READ ALSO How much money do you need to be considered rich in France?

According to its calculations, to be considered ‘rich’ in France, a single person with no dependants needs to earn more than €3,860 per month, after taxes and social charges. Around eight percent of single workers have this sum deposited into their bank balance every month, it said.

A total of 23 percent of workers take home €3,000 or more every month, while the top 10 percent clear €4,170. 

To be in the top one percent of earners in France in 2024, one person must bring in at least €10,000 per month. After taxes and social charges.

The median income – the median is the ‘middle value’ of a range of totals – of tax households in mainland France is €1,923 per month after taxes and social charges, according to INSEE 2021 data, which means that a ‘rich’ person earns about twice as much as a person on the median income, according to the Observatoire.

Paris situation

About 75 percent of people living in Paris earn less than €4,458 per month, according to Insee data – so according to those calculations, 25 percent of Parisians earn the equivalent of the top 10 percent in France. 

But that city-wide average still hides a wide degree of variation. In the sixth arrondissement, the median income is €4,358 per month, after tax. In the seventh, it’s €4,255.  Further out, those bringing home €4,600 a month in the 19th and 20th arrondissements are among the top 10 percent in wealth terms.

But still, the median income in Paris is €2,639, significantly higher than the €1,923 France-wide median.

That would mean – using the Observatoire des Inégalités’ starting point for wealth – that a Paris resident, living on their own, would have to bring home €5,278 per month to be considered ‘rich’. 

France is a heavily centralised country, with many of the highest-paying industries concentrated within the capital, meaning there is much more opportunity to secure a high-wage job if you live in Paris.

Cost of living

Even these figures should all be taken with a pinch of salt because of the relatively high cost of living in the capital, compared to elsewhere in France. Paris is objectively an expensive place to call home.

In 2023, France Stratégie published a report on the disposable income of French households, after housing, food and transport costs were deducted. It found that, on average, people living in the Paris region had more left to spend, due to higher incomes and despite the fact that housing costs more.

It’s the income paradox in action. A person with a take-home salary of €4,000 per month has more money to spend if they live and work outside Paris. But they’re much more likely to earn that much if they live and work in Paris, where it’s not as valuable. 

Someone who earns a ‘rich-level’ salary in Paris might not appear rich – because they live in an expensive area, and a surrounded by very wealthy people in property that’s out of reach all-but the fattest of wallets. But they’re still earning more than twice the median income in France.

And that’s what Sylvain Maillard was getting at, clumsily as he may have expressed it.

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