Paris hosted the 2024 Olympic Games.

 

Most of the infrastructures were located in the outskirts of the city — areas that are often home to underprivileged populations. One of the largest parks in the region, Parc Georges-Valbon, a green lung for the east of the capital, was particularly threatened: several of its areas had been earmarked for Olympic infrastructure. The most vulnerable of these was L'Aire des Vents, which was set to be covered in concrete to make way for the media village.

 

The silhouettes of 44 protected animal species living in the park — among them the Natterjack toad, which would not have survived the Games according to a study by ANCA — were cut from the 266 pages of the Paris 2024 bid document.

 

That this text can now be written in the past tense is thanks to the sustained efforts of several organisations and residents' associations, who achieved a legal victory in 2022 after years of mobilisation. Parc Georges-Valbon and its biodiversity were ultimately spared.

 

FAIR PLAY stands as an ode to civil resistance and collective mobilisation.