Paris 2024 Olympic Games: in Marseille, a thousand demonstrators opposed to the Games gathered before the arrival of Belem

“Rich Olympics”, “Nothing to be proud of”… A thousand people demonstrated in Marseille this Wednesday to denounce the Olympic Games with harmful social and environmental consequences and to demand the exclusion of Israel, as had been the South Africa’s apartheid regime.

“The Olympic Games, with the capitalist and neoliberal logic that drives them, will inevitably have harmful consequences for the cities that host them and certain categories of the population,” one of the demonstrators, Antoine, declared to AFP at the very moment when , in the harbor of Marseille, hundreds of boats welcomed the Olympic flame, transported from Greece aboard the three-masted Belem.

A call launched by several collectives

The young man, who did not wish to reveal his last name, claiming to fear reprisals from his employer or intimidation from the police, was responding to a call to demonstrate launched by several groups wishing to “show that we can make a popular celebration in the name of sport, without exploiting, oppressing or destroying.”

“The Olympic Games and their misdeeds are a system, in terms of gentrification, policeization of public space, dispossession of the city,” lamented the day before, during a press briefing, Félix Tréguer, member of the association Quadrature of the Net.

“There is also the problem of undocumented workers exploited on construction sites. On ecology, organizing surfing events in Polynesia and going for tours on the coral reef is problematic,” said Simon Durant, a 23-year-old student from Marseille, in the procession.

“There are lots of things that make me hate, and in particular that students are kicked out of the Crous (Regional Center for University and School Works) accommodation to accommodate tourists,” adds one of his friends, Adam, adding: “We are not proud. »

The exclusion of Israel from the Olympics demanded by the demonstrators

Within the demonstration, banners and slogans also called for the exclusion of Israel from the Olympic Games, while the Israeli army continues its operations in the Gaza Strip and negotiations are being held in Cairo for a truce between Israel and Hamas.

“At the time of apartheid, the International Olympic Committee excluded South African teams from the Olympics. So we are asking the same thing because of the situation in occupied Palestine,” Juliette Simon, facilitator of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) France campaign, explained to AFP.

The attack carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement in southern Israel on October 7 resulted in the death of more than 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data. In retaliation, Israel launched a military operation in Gaza that has so far killed 34,844 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.