70 days before the Olympic Games, the major works undertaken for the occasion are mostly completed. The event sites, as well as the athletes’ and media village, have been delivered. On a human level, according to Solideo (the delivery company for the Olympic works), no fatal accident has been recorded on the 70 construction sites it oversees. However, 7 men did indeed die while participating in the construction of infrastructure linked to the Olympics.
In March 2020, as France plunged for several months into confinement imposed in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of Maxim Wagner, 37, goes completely unnoticed. He died on the construction site of the extension of metro line 14, which is to connect Orly airport, south of Paris, to the new St-Denis Pleyel station, a stone’s throw from the athletes’ village and the Olympic Aquatic Center. .
If the construction sites of these last two works supervised by Solideo weigh in the count of work accidents, the development of the transport network – although necessary for the transport of visitors and athletes in the area – does not count.
« The other projects are not for the Games, but at the initiative of the city, the RATP, explains the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee. Line 14 was planned well in advance of the Games. We only come here “plugs” because we want 100% of the sites to be accessible, so we rely on the transport card. But these projects are not carried out and supervised by the Games. »
The extension of line 14, as well as the undergrounding of metro lines 15, 16 and 17, are effectively part of the Grand Paris Express project, supported by the State and the Ile-de-France Region since 2010, i.e. 6 years before the city of Paris was selected to host the Olympic Games. However, it is difficult to disconnect the two projects.
The Greater Paris project, at the heart of Paris 2024
In the application file from the city of Paris sent to the IOC in 2016, Greater Paris is widely highlighted on several occasions. The argument of interconnected and quickly accessible Olympic sites gives weight to the Parisian project. An example among many other figures in the third part of the file, devoted to the delivery and legacy of games: “ To meet athletes’ desire for quick and easy means of transport during their free time, the Paris 2024 concept offers, a five-minute walk from the village, the Saint-Denis Pleyel transport hub of the new Grand Paris Express. which will connect the city center of Paris in less than 20 minutes [accès à cinq lignes de métro: 13, 14, 15, 16 et 17.-NDLR]. »
It was while building this “Saint-Denis Pleyel pole” that Abdoulaye Soumahoro, 41, lost his life in 2020, and that Joao Batista Miranda, 61, will also be killed in 2022.
Last month, 100 days before the Olympic Games, Emmanuel Macron also linked the two projects duringa long interview on BFM TV recorded at the Grand Palais. Referring to Gare Pleyel, which will be inaugurated in June, and metro line 14, the President of the Republic recalled that “ the Olympic Games are an accelerator of the work of Greater Paris “. At the entrance to the Pleyel Station construction site, a countdown to the Games had also been installed, as if to remind you of the imminence of the deadline.
More recently, Valérie Pécresse, president of the Ile-de-France Region, further supported the impact of the Olympic Games on Greater Paris, during a round table in the Senate devoted to transport during the games, on May 15, she launched: “ Every week, we have colossal, historic projects that arrive on time. “, she congratulated herself before specifying: “ The games have not actually changed our ambition for transport, they are not the ones at the origin of the extension of Line 14, these contracts already existed in our State-Region plans, but it is still necessary to ‘to admit, to notice – and that’s why I always say “Thank you games! ” – that in our country nothing happens on time, and especially not trains, and thanks to games, everything happens on time. »
In her speech, Valérie Pécresse will also mention the Eole project, an extension of the RER E, which currently links eastern Paris to La Défense, also a competition zone. It is on this construction site that died in turn Jérémy Wasson, 21-year-old intern, in 2020. Although the delivery schedule for the works was delayed, lines 15, 16 and 17 were originally supposed to be delivered for the Olympics. It was on the line 16 construction site that a 58-year-old truck driver, Franck Michel, died while unloading his cargo in Blanc-Mesnil, in Seine-Saint-Denis (93).
A few days later, in the neighboring town of Gonesse (95), a young man lost his life. Seydou Fofana, 21, dies of asphyxiation when a block of concrete broke away several meters above his head on the line 17 construction site. He had arrived in France as an unaccompanied minor after crossing the Mediterranean and was on an integration contract.
Amara Dioumassy, died for the Austerlitz basin
A year ago, a seventh man died in turn. Amara Dioumassy, a 51-year-old Malian worker, was hit by a truck which was reversing on the Austerlitz basin construction site.
« They believe that Amara Dioumassy is not a death linked to the Olympic Games, because it is not a project of Solideo but of Paris City Hall », Explains Matthieu Lépine, former professor of History-Geography, who investigated fatal work accidents. Still, it’s hard not to make the connection. On the town hall website, the very first lines of the presentation of the basin specify that the purpose of the water retention tank is to “ make the Seine swimmable for the Olympic and Paralympic events of the Paris Games “. An omission which allows the Organizing Committee to say that no deaths have been reported on the official construction sites, those of Solideo.
« I find this bickering ridiculous », adds Matthieu Lépine. The History-Geography professor put his teaching career on hold to keep the count of deaths at work up to date, in the manner of associations like All of us which counts feminicides. “ It obviously suits them to let people think that their construction sites are that perfect. », he analyzes.
🔴 Grand Paris/RER/JO 2024 construction sites: 7 deaths since 2020
Maxime Wagner (37 years old, 2020)
Jérémy Wasson (21 years old, 2020)
Abdoulaye Soumahoro (41 years old, 2020)
Joao Baptista Miranda (61 years, 2022)
Franck Michel (58 years old, 2023)
Seydou Fofana (22 years old, 2023)
Amara Dioumassy (51 ans, 2023) pic.twitter.com/cdsG0o95mf— Work accident: silence of workers dying (@DuAccident) July 16, 2023
Solideo’s “exemplary” record
Of the 70 Olympic structures for which Solideo is responsible, 181 work accidents were recorded, including 31 considered “serious”, that is to say having ” resulted in permanent incapacity for work or revealed the existence of a serious danger », specifies the company in an email addressed to RFI, specifying that these projects “ have four times fewer workplace accidents than the average for comparable construction sites ».
An additional form of hypocrisy, for Matthieu Lépine: “ This therefore means that when the means are put in place, because there they had the spotlight on them, it seems that it is possible that security will be more respected. Which therefore means that everywhere else where fatal accidents occur, safety is perhaps not sufficiently guaranteed. “, he summarizes.
What about workplace accidents affecting undocumented workers? This is the final gray area of these Olympic projects. Workers who are “ more at risk than others », for Matthieu Lépine. “ We will certainly protect them less and we will play on their administrative precariousness to make them accept things that would not be acceptable or to not report work accidents that could take place. “. In the event of an accident, it is therefore a double penalty, whereas in France “ his accident must be reported and he has the same rights as anyone », recalls Matthieu Lépine. There is therefore a submerged part of the iceberg whose extent we do not yet know.
