The "most deprived department in France is expected to be a big winner" now that Paris is in line to host the 2024 Olympics, with "thousands of homes and a new swimming center to be built" in Seine-St. Denis for the Games, according to Miranda Alexander-Webber of REUTERS. The poorest of France's 101 mainland departments, Seine-St. Denis sprawls east and north from Paris, "much of it a drab expanse of grey suburbs, abandoned factories and poverty." Paris learned on Monday that it was "a near certainty" to be the IOC's chosen host for the 2024 Games. Organizers of the Games said that their "aim to lift" Seine-St. Denis' fortunes "helped their case" with the IOC. Seine-St. Denis President Stéphane Troussel said, "Bearing in mind the symbolic and real divides which there sometimes still are between Paris and its suburbs, this young, working class place, with young people of all colors and all origins allows us to say to the IOC that these Games are a wonderful opportunity to show that Paris is bigger than Paris" (REUTERS, 8/1).
