Paris 2024: Olympic village will be ready on time

The construction of the Olympic athletes village is on time and on budget as organisers promise to deliver a safe Games, the general director of Paris 2024 has said.

"Most of my colleagues in the past were stressed about the delivery of the infrastructures. I must say I'm not on that side with Paris 2024. I'm very cool and serene, we will deliver on time and on budget," Etienne Thobois said from the top of one of the buildings.

"We will take over the village one year from now. The construction will be finished in January and the village will be fully delivered in March.

"We discussed with the local authorities to build a new neighbourhood for the future in this area and then to adapt to make an Olympic village," Thobois explained.

"The idea was to build a neighbourhood that would be used as an Olympic village, not the other way around. It guarantees that we will live up to expectations."

Some 6,000 will live in the neighbourhood, which spans over the suburban cities of Saint Ouen, Saint Denis and L'Ile Saint Denis.

"The various buildings here are will have a final use that will be different, some will be social housing, some will be private housing, some will be offices, so will be public services," Thobois said.

"And during the Games the use of the building might be different, because we will need as many beds as possible. So, that will mean overlay, that will mean a transformation. It's a bit of extra work but that's again the guarantee that the legacy will be best addressed.

"Since 2017, our budget has remained the same in constant euros," Nicolas Ferrand, director general of SOLIDEO, the public body responsible for delivering the Olympic and Paralympic infrastructures, told reporters.

There will be no air conditioning in the