“We were neither consulted nor informed and we note our opposition to the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024.”
– Collectif Non aux JO 2024 à Paris
In 2017 the Collectif NON aux JO 2024 à Paris (the ‘NO to the 2024 Paris Olympics’ Collective) launched a petition calling for a referendum on the question of Paris’ candidature for the 2024 Olympics. As of June 2019, it has garnered over 32,000 signatures. In recent meetings the International Olympic Committee suggested that, going forward, it will encourage (some) cities to hold referenda on hosting the Olympics before formalizing their bids for the Olympics. In scheduled host cities Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, and Los Angeles, residents were not offered a chance to vote on their city’s bid, despite demands for such a democratic process in Paris and Los Angeles.
IOC representatives have suggested that cities in non-democratic countries, like Beijing, would be under no requirement to hold a referendum. In fact, the IOC’s language — that “cities that will need to host a referendum” should host one earlier — leave it vague as to whether any cities that don’t already have a strong culture of referenda would be required to hold a vote on an Olympic vote. The announcement could simply mean that the IOC would prefer those European cities (and Boston) that have held embarrassing referenda in recent years to please do so with less fanfare, before the public has had a chance to learn the details of the Olympic bid.
Read the full petition in French here.