Without them, the 2024 Games would never have happened. Every day, there are hundreds of them, men and women, workers and executives, working on construction sites. he meets.
Audrey Leger, 35, crane operator at the Bourges site
From the very beginning, Audrey told us she had vertigo. Every day, however, she goes there to climb a crane, which peaks at 22 metres, with an unobstructed view of Le Bourget’s construction site. “My record is a crane at 82m! This mother’s journey of a 9-year-old is atypical.” After three years in hairdressing, a year in the army, I was interviewed by a company that was looking for crane operators. I tried it, I loved it. »
“You have to know how to take initiative, manage your stress, and stay focused at all times,” she explains. We have people’s lives in our hands, and we need a lot of vigilance when moving loads. Audrey smiled, detailing all the electronics inside her cabin. “I have the same joysticks that the pilot of the plane uses, and the workers call it my Game Boy or my PlayStation!” , et notamment celui du gymnase du Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis), futur site d’entraînement climbing.
She gets up every morning at 4 am and gets to work at 6:45 am by public transportation. Since last November, she has been working at this Olympic venue, the only woman out of her 27 companions. “Starting this job at 18, I lacked personality and learned to assert myself. It’s not necessarily easy to accept a woman on top of a crane, with responsibilities. We make a great team here.” Audrey, a former track and field athlete and basketball player, admits she takes pride in working on “A site that we will see and that will serve the population next.” “I don’t know where I will be in the summer of 2024, maybe on another site! »
Florence Shahid Nouri, 47, Athletes’ Village Project Manager
Even in the middle of the three blocks of sector D of the Athletes’ Village – where the home of Icade-CDC and the Caisse des dépôts consortium is planning 640 housing units, 9,000 square meters of offices and 3,000 square meters of shops and activities – Florence Shahid-Nouri has already planned for summer 2024.” The games are in Paris, we want to be there, especially in everything I’ll be wearing for four years.Florence recounts her slightly crazy desire to “contribute to the Olympic project,” when Paris was named host city in 2017.
“Just before I arrived, Icade had just won the village competition, my boss sent me a message: The Olympic Games for you. It’s a moment I will always remember. »Three days a week, Florence is on the site of the village, ensuring the smooth running of work, in particular respecting the schedule, commitments and financial balance. Our mission is to overcome obstacles, with the company, project management and architects to deliver a project that complies with commitments. »
Many of the agents since the village will have their first lives during the 2024 Games before being taken over by investors. When we got to our own (where 300 workers work)There were warehouses, a hotel and a school for physiotherapists, remembers Florence See More. In my head I see myself handing over the keys to customers, at the stage of inheritance, I imagine the opening of the first boutiques. The Olympic stage is more mysterious. “It is very new for all of us in gaming, but we know that we will be seen all over the world and therefore we have no room for error.”
Luis Rodriguez, 55, team captain at Athletes’ Village
Every day, Luis Rodrigues spends three hours commuting from Viry-Châtillon (Essonne) to Saint-Denis where he has been working for the past year as team captain at Vinci Immobilier’s Universeine site. Always with a smile. Of Portuguese descent, Luis is passionate about soccer and major sporting events. “Of course we watch the Olympics on TV, and we won’t miss the one in Paris.”
Athletes will train in Halle Maxwell, formerly home to the thermal power plant that supplied the northern area of the Parisian agglomeration for several decades, the jewel of the Olympic Village because of its architecture. “It’s a beautiful surface, I’ve never had the opportunity to work on such a site,” notes Louis, team leader at Dumez Île-de-France (a subsidiary of Vinci Construction) for twelve years. When I was told about the Olympic Village, I imagined something Much smaller. It’s great to be part of an event like this. I talk about it with friends and my family.”
Louis arrived in Area B of the site a year ago. “We had to secure the site, and then there was the whole phase of the construction work, including pouring the concrete,” he recalls. There are eight of us in my team, each company has its own life rule and organization, but we meet many people at lunchtime or on transport. This site is one of a kind and I am proud to be here. I don’t know where I will be in 2024, I will probably work, but I wish we could see this village on TV. »
