Karim Bouamran, the socialist mayor of Saint-Huen, the Paris suburb that will host the Olympic Village during the 2024 Olympics, is spearheading a rapid transformation of the long-troubled site.
The mayor grew up in a building so dilapidated - with dirty corridors, no private toilets, no showers - that his friends in the nearby concrete towers pitied him.
Five decades later, that building - in the Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen - is a distant memory, and in its place rises the Olympic pride of France: a sports village with buildings that are examples of architectural skill, equipped with solar panels, deep cooling and heating pipes, and elegant balconies from which you can look at the greenery at the foot. After the Games, a quarter will be converted into public housing.
"Suddenly, we have the same sense of pride as the people who live in the center," said 51-year-old mayor Karim Buamran. "Now Saint-Euen is in the company of Los Angeles, Barcelona, Beijing, London, Sydney".
Even before the Olympic Committee decided to invest in this economically depleted northern suburb, Saint Ouen was changing. However, since then, and since the election of Buamran as mayor in 2020, the transformation seems to have received a turbo boost.
Trucks noisily pass through the suburbs, including a section in front of the 160-year-old City Council building, where jackhammers and excavators are tearing up the asphalt, in line with plans to green a nearby square.
At the center of these activities is Buamran, a member of the Socialist Party, who is often in the media these days as Saint Ouen prepares to welcome the Olympians.
He announces contracts with universities and colleges, signs partnerships with foreign governments and brings the US ambassador to a local elementary school to meet students.
"Self-confidence, self-esteem. This is what children get through the Olympics," Buamran said.
As the middle child of an illiterate Moroccan immigrant who came to Paris to work in construction and support his family in Morocco, Bouamran is well aware of the impression he makes when visiting schools. However, inspiration is not enough - he is channeling the international attention brought by the Olympics to attract new programs, infrastructure and opportunities to his city and so that "children can become creators, not passive victims, of their lives".
"I use the Olympic Games as a political weapon, in a noble way, to raise awareness and empower an entire generation," Bouamran said while sitting next to Toni Estanget, head of the Paris Olympic Committee.
Talking to Buamran is a bit like going around an amusement park after eating cotton candy. He begins the story in English, then switches to French, and then suddenly speaks Portuguese - the new language he is learning, the fifth in line. He spices up his lively presentation with quotes from Marx, Plato, Sartre, Spike Lee and Pink Floyd. He bellows the chorus of Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" and then, without warning, breaks into Depeche Mode's "A Question of Time."
At the height of the story, he takes off the jacket of the three-piece blue three-piece suit he wears like a uniform along with a bracelet his daughter made for him. While the story keeps repeating one word: equality. "He was born with character and self-confidence," said actor Ahsen Gulman, one of his childhood friends.
Buamran walks into an office in City Hall, pointing to the many framed photos and posters on the walls. There is a photo of Tommy Smith on the Olympic podium in Mexico City in 1968, holding a raised fist, and Socrates, the Brazilian doctor and famous soccer player who opposed the military dictatorship.
Today in France, people who can progress and choose their lives are in hypercentres. You have the best schools, the best teachers, the best hospitals, the best relationships. If you don't have it, you have to work ten times harder, and constantly justify yourself, Buamran said
"He used football as a weapon, with the same philosophy - equality," said Buamran, who hosted a big celebration last month to name a street in the Olympic Village after Socrates, not far from where the mayor's dilapidated childhood home once stood. Socrates was one of his inspirations then and is still the same today.
"That's the first photo I put on the wall right after I was elected mayor," said Buamran. Coincidentally, the Brazilian Olympic organization came to visit and they saw the photo. A connection was made, and soon Saint-Ouen not only became the venue for the Brazilian team and fans during the Games, but Buamran signed a twinning agreement with Rio de Janeiro.
It has also signed a number of other partnerships, including one to send young climate activists from Saint-Ouen to Belem, Brazil, for the upcoming COP30 climate change conference.
As one of the industrial suburbs built on the edge of the city to support the country's growth, Saint Ouen had factories that began to close during the 1870s, leaving behind poverty, unemployment and crime. If Parisians went there, it was usually because of the huge flea market started by scrap metal collectors who had been driven out of Paris in the XNUMXs.
Growing up, Buamran and his friend Gulman were part of a tight circle of children of immigrant workers and spent Saturdays together in the library, devouring classic books, newspapers, movies and music. They remain close today.
"One of the things that Karim taught us is that no one decides about our future, except ourselves," said Majid Agar, a 51-year-old member of their group who is now a teacher. “To get there you need a culture and a base. This is why he was always a good student. That was important to us - not only academic success but also understanding how the world works".
They all had the sense of exclusion that came from living on the less glamorous side of the periphery—the ring of highways that encircled Paris like the medieval walls that protected elegant palaces, flower gardens, and prestigious universities. Rather than direct racism, they said they felt vague social exclusion, along with low social expectations.
Correcting that feeling is at the very heart of Buamran's political program, which he calls the "democratization of excellence."
"Today in France, people who can progress and choose their lives are in hypercenters," said Bouamran, who is married and has three children. "You have the best schools, the best teachers, the best hospitals, the best connections. If you don't have it, you have to work ten times harder, and constantly justify yourself".
After graduating from university with a master's degree in economics and European law, Buamran landed a job at a cybersecurity company just as the internet was taking off.
Thanks to that job, he traveled a lot, especially to the United States, where he learned English and broadened his horizons, deepening his love for the generous French social security system. The USA, as he said, was "the first country where I felt respected for my qualities".
Around the same time in 1995, he was elected to the Sen Uen local council for the first time. He later joined the Socialist Party and eventually became its spokesman.
Since becoming mayor, Buamran has attracted companies, including Tesla, to open offices in Saint-Uyen, which, thanks to additional taxes, have helped finance new elementary schools.
He persuaded several French colleges to open campuses in the suburbs, including the respected Audensia business school, with special admissions programs for local residents. Franco-American basketball star Tony Parker has joined in, agreeing to open an elite sports school in the disused sports complex which is at the center of a €14m renovation for the Games.
Parker said he made the deal during lunch with Buamran.
"It was love at first sight for his vision, his passion and what he wants to achieve here," Parker said.
Bouamran's energy and vision also attracted the attention of socialist powerhouses such as Mathieu Pigas.
"I want him to be the future of the French left, the social democrats," said Pigas, an investment banker known as the Che Guevara of finance.
Buamran does not hide his ambitions. He considers it his responsibility to fight the growth of right-wing ideas and politics in his country.
Right now, though, he's focused on the local residents, who lean out of his car window to congratulate him on the changes they're seeing.
"This is the France that we need to build together," he said.
Translation: NB
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