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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

The Paris Metro and RER stations that will close during the Olympics

If you're in Paris over the summer you may need to adapt your travel plans, as some Metro and RER stations will close during the Games.

Published: 26 April 2024 16:55 CEST
A tram leaves Paris's Porte de Versailles station
A tram leaves Paris's Porte de Versailles station. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)

Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nuñez on Friday unveiled security measures for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games – including public transport changes.

Opening ceremony

Most of the transport disruption is linked to the ambitious opening ceremony on July 26th – with closures starting in the days leading up to the ceremony and stations re-opening either after the ceremony ends on Friday night or on the following Saturday morning.

These closures affect the ‘protection perimeter’ or the enhanced security zone along the riverbanks that form the route of the opening ceremony.

“All Metro stations leading into the protection perimeter will be closed from July 18th”, Nuñez revealed in a press conference devoted to the police and military arrangements in place for the grand ceremony.

“If you set up a watertight perimeter, but allow people to take the Metro and go back up in the middle of this perimeter, it’s no longer watertight,” he added. 

READ ALSO How to check for Paris Olympics disruption in your area

With the exception of Saint-Michel on the RER C line, all Metro and RER stations within the anti-terrorist protection perimeter will be closed eight days before the event, during which time authorities will be clearing the river, until after the opening ceremony on the Seine.

The various closures will have no impact on the operation of the lines, which will continue to run, as the Paris Police Prefect emphasised, they just won’t stop at those particular stations.

The 15 stations that will be closed are:

  • Alma Marceau (line 9)
  • Champs-Élysées Clémenceau (lines 1 and 13)
  • Cité (4)
  • Concorde (1, 8, 12)
  • Iéna (9)
  • Javel (10)
  • Passy (6)
  • Quai de la Râpée (5)
  • Trocadéro (6, 9)
  • Tuileries (1)
  • Champs-Élysées Clémenceau (RER C)
  • Musée d’Orsay (RER C)
  • Pont de l’Alma (RER C)
  • Trains on Line 7 will pass under the Seine without passengers between Châtelet (including line 11), Pont Marie, Pont Neuf and Sully Morland stations.

Buses are also affected.

“On the day of the ceremony, no buses will be allowed to circulate within the perimeter,” the Préfecture de Police said.

Buses will still run, but vehicles will be rerouted to avoid the area.

Rest of the Games period

Once the ceremony is over, most services will return to normal.

However some stations will remain closed for the duration of the Games – mainly those that are located within or next to competition venues.

Concorde station will be closed to users of line 1 and 8 from June 17th to September 21st and line 12 from May 17th to September 21st, due to its proximity to the site dedicated to urban sports. 

READ ALSO Factcheck: Which areas will be closed in Paris during the Olympics?

Tuileries, served by line 1, will be closed from June 17th to September 21st.

Finally, on lines 1 and 13, Champs-Élysées-Clémenceau will be closed from July 1st to September 21st.

Tramway stations will also be affected by the closures.

Starting with Porte d’Issy (T2) and Porte de Versailles (T2, T3a) tram stations will be closed from July 25th to August 11th and from August 29th to September 7th.

The Colette Besson station on the T3b line will also be closed from July 27th to August 10th, and again from August 29th to September 8th.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes’ beds are ‘anti-sex’

They may be made of cardboard, but the beds at the athletes' village for this year's Paris Olympics have been chosen for their environmental credentials, not to prevent competitors having sex, organisers said.

Published: 18 May 2024 13:19 CEST
Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes' beds are 'anti-sex'

The clarification came after fresh reports that the beds, manufactured by Japanese company Airweave and already used during the Tokyo 2020 Games, were to deter athletes from jumping under the covers together in the City of Love.

“We know the media has had a lot of fun with this story since Tokyo 2020, but for Paris 2024 the choice of these beds for the Olympic and Paralympic Village is primarily linked to a wider ambition to ensure minimal environmental impact and a second life for all equipment,” a spokesman for the Paris Games told AFP.

The bed bases are made from recycled cardboard, but during a demonstration in July last year Airweave founder Motokuni Takaoka jumped on one of them and stressed that they “can support several people on top”.

The Paris Games spokesman underlined that “the quality of the furniture has been rigorously tested to ensure it is robust, comfortable and appropriate for all the athletes who will use it, and who span a very broad range of body types – from gymnasts to judokas”.

The fully modular Airweave beds can be customised to accommodate long and large body sizes, with the mattresses — made out of resin fibre — available with different firmness levels.

After the Games, the bed frames will be recycled while the mattresses and pillows will be donated to schools or associations.

Athletes will sleep in single beds, two or three to a room, in the village, a newly built complex close to the main athletics stadium in a northern suburb of the capital.

A report this week in the New York Post tabloid entitled “‘Anti-sex’ beds have arrived at Paris Olympics” was reported by other media and widely circulated on social media.

Similar claims went viral before the Tokyo Olympics, sometimes fanned by athletes themselves.

To debunk them, Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan filmed a video of himself jumping repeatedly on a bed to demonstrate their solidity.

At those Games, during the coronavirus pandemic, organisers, however, urged athletes to “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

In March, Laurent Dalard, in charge of first aid and health services at Paris 2024, said around 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women will be made available at the athletes’ village during the Games.

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