His role was purely ceremonial and his presence was not necessarily known to the athletes... Paris 2024 therefore decided that, next summer, there would be no mayor in the Olympic village.
The little tradition, still in force in Tokyo (Japan), where the mayor - Saburo Kawabuchi, former Japanese footballer and member of the Olympic selection for the 1964 Olympic Games, was directly surrounded by a "municipal council" - will therefore not be perpetuated.
At the Games, the village number one was there to welcome each delegation.
However, in Paris next summer, no protocol ceremony will be organized upon the arrival of each of the 206 Olympic delegations, the latter not all being fans of this little ritual, which sometimes took many minutes.
Read alsoParis 2024: diving into the heart of the Olympic village
The flags of the 206 nations - plus those of the refugee team and the delegation under a neutral banner - will be installed on the esplanade located in front of the nave of the Cité du cinéma, which will serve as a huge restaurant for the approximately 8,500 athletes of the village (2,000 will stay outside Seine-Saint-Denis, notably in Lille, Châteauroux and Marseille), but the teams will not be officially welcomed, with their anthem.
His office will have another use
Imagined at the Copernic Pavilion, at the foot of the Olympic Square, the mayor's office, ultimately non-existent, of the village will therefore have another use.
The absence of this strange councilor also helps clarify the organization chart.
Especially since the Olympic village has the particularity of being spread over three municipalities of Seine-Saint-Denis — Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and L'Île-Saint-Denis — which each have an official mayor.
The Olympic village also already has a manager, Laurent Michaud, who on February 29 will officially take possession of the premises, with Solideo in charge during the construction phase, handing over the keys to Paris 2024, until the end of the Paralympic Games.
If the village mayor was responsible for orchestrating the arrival ceremonies, he was also present during visits by dignitaries and heads of state.
However, here again, Paris 2024 already has a protocol team, led by Paola Mora, the head of relations with the national committees, and Sophie Lorant, the director of international relations.