Can Paris still deliver on its Olympic promises with only three months to go?

“It’s going to be magical,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo exclaimed, just moments after learning that her city had won its bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.

It was the late summer of 2017 and along with Tony Estanguet, France’s three-time Olympic canoeing champion who would later be tapped the chief organiser of the event, Paris's mayor vowed to deliver an Olympics unlike any other.

But just as the Paris Olympics apparatus began to unveil beautiful images of the grandiose transformation the city would undergo in time for the event, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, resulting in three nationwide lockdowns and considerable delays to some of the revitalisation plans. Less than a year before the start of the Games, the war in Gaza broke out, stoking domestic and international tensions. Then, with just four months to go, a deadly terror attack shook Russia and forced France to raise its security alert to its highest level – a move that could potentially impact the star of the show: the opening ceremony on the River Seine.

Meanwhile, bills have racked up, leading to hikes in transport tariffs, and the Seine River has proven to be a far more complicated clean-up project than thought.

Despite the hurdles, officials insist the Games are on track. As the three-month countdown begins, FRANCE 24 takes a look at some of the main challenges and where they currently stand.

• Will the Eiffel Tower be repainted gold?

This might not have been as much of a promise as it was an ambition – but no, the Iron Lady will not be entirely redressed in a fresh coat of gold in time for the Games.

The paint job for the 330-metre-tall monument began in 2019 and its completion was supposed to be timed not only with the Games but also with the 100-year anniversary of the death of its architect, Gustave Eiffel.

Reasons for the delay include the Covid-19 pandemic, which shaved a total of nine months off the initial schedule, and then lead being discovered in previous layers of paint, pushing the finish line even farther away.

The Eiffel Tower is now not expected to shine in its new golden hue until some time in 2025 or 2026.

• Will the Seine be swimmable?

Cleaning up the Seine and making it swimmable again for the first time in 100 years was perhaps Hidalgo’s most ambitious Olympic promise. The Paris mayor has repeatedly pledged to take a dip in the river herself before the Games open, and so has President Emmanuel Macron.

The river is set to host several Olympic swimming competitions, including the open-water swimming events (200-metre freestyle and 200-metre obstacle event) as well as the triathlon.

But the still yellow-brown water that flows through the French capital has so far proved to be far more difficult to clean than expected. At least three pre-Olympic test events had to be cancelled last year after an excessive amount of E. coli bacteria was detected in the water.

In early April, French water charity Surfrider said it had analysed six months of tests taken between September and March and that the water where the Olympic events are set to take place is still too polluted. According to the charity, which reviewed tests carried out by the Eau de Paris laboratory and environmental group Analy-Co, the occurrence of E. coli and enterococci – which both indicate the presence of faecal matter – was often double, and in some cases even triple, the limits set by the international triathlon and open-water swimming federations.

But there is still some hope: Most of the tests Surfrider analysed were taken in winter, which is a period when heavy rains and flooding tend to pollute the water more than usual. And work is still underway to add more pollution-preventing measures. By the end of this month, the Seine will be equipped with a new storm water facility, and new sewage connections are being added to its riverboats every day.

Although there is currently no plan B, the prefect of Paris and the Île-de-France region remains confident, insisting in a statement that “the water in the Seine will be swimmable to allow the events to take place”.

In an interview with FRANCE 24, Benjamin Maze, the technical director for the French triathlon team, said the water quality of the Seine "is not a concern for triathletes" and is unlikely to stop the competition, noting it did not do so during the Tokyo, Rio or London Olympics, where water concerns were similar.

The worst-case scenario, he predicted, would be that the competition is moved up a few days.

The City of Paris did not reply to a request for comment on the issue.

• Is Paris public transport up to the job?

With 8.8 million tickets sold, a huge number of visitors is expected in Paris for the July 26-August 11 Olympics and August 28-September 8 Paralympics. And all eyes are on the city’s aging Métro, which will be the main means of transport for many. The number of daily passengers is expected to jump from the usual 150,000 a day to an estimated 800,000.

In anticipation of the Games, the city has sped up its Grand Paris Express project which, once it is all done and dusted, is set to add four new lines to the network and extend two already existing lines. It was hoped that three of the new lines (15, 16 and 17) would be ready for Paris 2024 but organisers had to ditch those plans a few years ago due to technical issues and delays related to the pandemic. An express train line from Paris’s international Charles de Gaulle airport also had to be pushed to the future for similar reasons.

With three months to go, workers are now rushing to finish the extensions of existing metro lines 11 and 14, with line 14 the most important since it will connect the city to Orly airport and include a transport node near the Stade de France. Operator RATP has said the line will be ready in June. “We’re running, it’s a marathon. But we’re on time,” Jean Castex, the head of the RATP and a former prime minister, insisted in late March.

What is certain, however, is that the iconic Paris Métro will be under pressure from the passenger increase, and RATP has announced it will add both more trains and more staff to handle it. But there are signs that authorities are nervous. Earlier this year, the government launched a campaign under the banner “anticipate the games”, urging those living and working in the city to “favour remote work when possible” as well as to consider other means of transport, including biking and walking. One of the main reasons is the fear of overcrowding, especially during peak hours.

Michel Allouche, a 39-year-old videographer who regularly uses the Métro to travel to his work in northern Paris, said he will do everything to avoid taking it during the Games.

“The Métro is already a mess under normal circumstances so I think it will be a total nightmare during the Olympics,” he said. “I think the only solution will be to use my bike to get around, and if it rains, too bad, I’ll just have to put a raincoat on.”

• Will the opening ceremony be held on the Seine?

This is likely an issue that will keep everyone on their toes until the very last minute and is tied to one thing: security.

After the Islamic State (IS) group claimed the deadly terror attack on a Moscow concert hall on March 22, France raised its security alert to the highest level. Less than three weeks later, the group issued a threat against all Champions League quarter-final matches, including one held in Paris. The developments cast doubt over whether Paris would go ahead with its plan to host the opening ceremony on the Seine, particularly since the city has been targeted by the IS group in the past – including the devastating 2015 attacks on the Bataclan concert hall and other popular night-time venues.

For the 2024 Olympics, Paris wanted to break with tradition and host the opening ceremony outside of a stadium for the very first time. The plan is to hold the event on the Seine, where the athletes will be carried along the river in a 6-kilometre-long boat parade – before the eyes of hundreds of thousands of spectators seated on the embankments.

But hosting such an event so openly outdoors requires a massive security effort. Earlier this year, authorities halved the number of spectators by the Seine to 300,000.

Some 45,000 police officers and 2,500 private security agents have been deployed for the opening ceremony, and both traffic around the area and the airspace will be closed off before it gets under way. Macron in mid-April announced for the first time that the July 26 open-air event might have to be moved if the security threat is deemed too high.

“If we think there are risks, depending on our analysis of the context, we have fallback scenarios," Macron said. “There are plan Bs and plan Cs,” he told French broadcasters BFM-TV and RMC.

One option, he said, could be to shorten the parade and limit it to the area around Trocadéro, directly across from the Eiffel Tower, or simply move the opening ceremony to the national stadium, Stade de France.  

Macron's announcement came amid media reports that a much-trumpeted anti-drone system, Parade, had performed worse than anticipated in recent test exercises. "In other words, Parade stopped the drones but within a much smaller perimeter than expected,” an anonymous security source told French weekly Marianne.

“It’s a world-first. We can do it and we will do it,” Macron said in the interview.

Read moreOpening ceremony to be held at Seine in front of 600,000 spectators

In an emailed response, the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (COJO) confirmed that limiting the ceremony to Trocadéro is "part of the contingency plans" and that the Stade de France could be a "potential host venue" if the security situation demands it.   

But it added: "Threats and risks should not prevent us from dreaming, nor from creating dreams, with a ceremony on the Seine."

For the time being, the plan remains for the Opening Ceremony to be staged on the river. 

• Will it be a people's party?

That was definitely the ambition, but with the number of seats by the Seine – two-thirds of which were free of cost – already slashed and steep price hikes for public transport, it's becoming less of a party for everyone.

Paris authorities had initially stated that public transport would be free for all during the Games, but backpeddled on that promise in 2022 to cover the costs of restoring and running the system.

At the end of last year, the region's transport authorities announced an exceptional ticket price increase during the Olympic period, with a single ticket nearly doubling from €2.15 to €4.

Locals have been advised to either buy their tickets in advance or charge their monthly passes to avoid the steep price hikes.

• How 'green' will the Games be?

Organisers initially said the Games would be "carbon neutral", meaning the event would achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions. But after facing heavy criticism for being misleadingly optimistic, they instead went with hosting "the greenest in history".

The goal is to halve the carbon footprint emitted by London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 – during which 3.4 million and 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 were emitted, respectively – and keep to a "carbon budget" of under 1.58 million tonnes of CO2.

A report published by environmental non-profit Carbon Market Watch in mid-April commended Paris for becoming the first Olympic host in history to set up such a budget, but noted it would be very difficult to assess its success due to a lack of transparency.

"It remains unsubstantiated. No methodology or details about calculation are disclosed, and carbon budgets across editions might not be comparable," it said, adding it “remains to be seen” whether the target aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Paris has made a considerable effort to limit its carbon footprint when it comes to the construction of its sports venues and athlete accommodations – 95 percent of them already exist or can be reused – and has also laid out the Games in a way that will allow for visitors to get around mostly by foot, bicycle or public transport. There will also be a wide offering of vegetarian food options during the Games.

But the report said activities directly linked to the Games only account for about a third of the greenhouse gases emitted. Instead, the main culprit is travel to and from the Olympics, which accounts for a staggering 40 percent of Olympic emissions. 

“It becomes clear that no Olympic Games can truly be compatible with the Paris Agreement’s objectives,” the report said, adding that the Olympics in their entirety need a "radical reimagining" to be viewed as sustainable.

• Are the Olympic Village and other venues ready?

Yes! The keys to the Olympic Village, the Olympic Aquatics Centre and other venues have already been handed over after they were completed on time.

At the time of writing, the COJOP had already installed 4,200 of the 14,200 beds in the Olympic Village and scaffolding and temporary spectator stands were being raised across the city, including at emblematic Parisian landmarks like La Concorde and the Champs de Mars by the Eiffel Tower as well as at the palace of Versailles just west of Paris.

"After months of question marks and worries (...) we're feeling that we're entering a phase of 'Olympic mania'," Emmanuel Grégoire, Paris's deputy mayor, told journalists in mid-April.

Still, not everyone is as enthused about the Games as the organisers: Only four out of 10 French people say they are eager for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The COJOP said it was aware of the sometimes "heated" debate taking place among French residents ahead of the Games but said it was "a natural sign of the public's enthusiasm".

On May 8, the Olympic Flame is set to arrive in the southern French city of Marseille and will pass through some 400 villages, towns and cities before reaching Paris.