After volleyball, badminton and sports swimming, sports shooting events could, in turn, leave Seine-Saint-Denis. Since the application phase, Paris 2024 had planned to organize them on the ground of Essences, the former military site located within the Georges-Valbon Departmental Park in La Courneuve. According to information from France Bleu Berry, the organizing committee intends, however, to relocate the competition to Châteauroux.
Officially “nothing has been recorded”, but in-depth studies are underway on the site of Les Essences, where depollution work began several months ago. According to some sources, the work would be “more complex than imagined”, in an area which moreover meets environmental standards, which would raise fears of delays.
Paris 2024 would therefore have started to look elsewhere, without reviving the project launched for a time by the French shooting federation in Saint-Witz, in the neighboring Val-d’Oise. Châteauroux becomes the favored hypothesis. “At this stage, I want to believe in a clumsiness of the teams of Paris 2024, reacts Stéphane Troussel (PS), the president of the departmental council of Seine-Saint-Denis. Any new constraint that will appear by 2024 can be resolved during meetings. »
The prefect of the Île-de-France region would have been annoyed by the non-compliance with the procedures
According to our information, back from the Tokyo Olympics, Paris 2024 would have imagined enlarging the site in order, in particular, to facilitate the progress of spectators and would be eyeing an artificial bowling alley located in the nearby Georges-Valbon park.
Still according to our information, the regional prefect would have been annoyed by the non-compliance with the procedures, Paris 2024 not having officially informed him of his wish to extend the competition site. In a letter, Marc Guillaume would have reminded the Cojo that before starting any work, and in order to obtain the authorizations, “a notice” had to be sent to him.
While the complexity of the depollution work and the timing are now pointed out by the organizing committee, at no time have they been mentioned during the last meetings, either to the Games delivery company (Solideo, which officially manages the firing site) than at the Cojo. Will the site map that has been definitively drawn up change? Not sure that elected officials, who had already fought to maintain mountain biking in Elancourt (Yvelines), hear it that way.