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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

How to get tickets for the Paris Paralympics

If you were bowled over by the beauty of the Paris Olympics but missed out on getting tickets or were put off by high prices, then now is your chance. The Paralympics start in two weeks, using the same stunning venues with tickets still available from €15.

Published: 12 August 2024 10:53 CEST
Updated: 15 August 2024 08:19 CEST
How to get tickets for the Paris Paralympics
The Palace of Versailles will again be a Games venue during the Paralympics. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Few could argue that the Paris Olympics weren’t spectacular – in particular with regard to the beautiful venues. From beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower to fencing inside the Grand Palais, equestrian events in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles to urban sports in the Place de la Concorde, the Games had a strong look.

The Olympics are now over, but there is a second chance to experience all of those beautiful venues in person – at the Paralympics which start in two weeks.

Games organisers are keeping the temporary venues which have been set up around the city and Paralympics events will be staged largely in the same venues as the Olympics – including the more traditional sporting venues such as the Stade de France, which will host para athletics. 

And the good news is that tickets are still available and start from €15. Meanwhile for those outside Paris, prices for accommodation and travel have dropped to seasonal norms – making a last-minute Paris trip feasible for some.

Tickets 

Tickets are sold on the same platform as Olympics tickets – HERE – and the process is the same – buy tickets online and then download the Paris 2024 Tickets app to receive the ticket. As with the Olympics, there is no option for paper tickets. 

How to use the Olympics and Paralympics app

There is also the official resale platform – HERE – allowing people to sell tickets that they no longer want or cannot use.

Tickets for the Paralympics start at €15 with half of all tickets on sale for €25 or less. Tickets for event finals range from €20 to €100.

As of Saturday, around half of the 2.8 million tickets on offer have been sold, meaning that there are plenty of available seats even for the most popular events such as wheelchair basketball and the athletics events.

Dates

The Paralympics begin on Wednesday, August 28th and run until Sunday, September 8th.

The opening ceremony is at 8pm on August 28th – like the Olympics this will be held in the city centre, not a stadium, although this time there will be no river parade. Instead the athletes will parade down the Champs-Elysées and into Place de la Concorde.

The ceremony itself has been designed by Thomas Jolly – who also did the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies – so expect the unexpected.

Events 

Paralympic events follow largely the same pattern as the Olympics with various adaptations of the sports eg basketball becomes wheelchair basketball, volleyball becomes sitting volleyball.

The other difference is the event classifications according to level of disability, meaning that instead of one men’s 100m final there are several according to level of disability eg single-leg amputee, double leg-amputee etc.

As with the Olympics, the marathon and cycling road races will be held on a course going through the city for which no tickets are required – you can just go along and watch as the races come through your neighbourhood.

Fan zones

The Olympic fan zones will also largely be staying in place ready for the Paralympics, with the exception of the Trocadéro fan zone, which closes. Instead a selection of winning athletes will parade each day at the La Villette fan park.

Other fan zones will keep their big screens, entertainment and food and drink offerings.

MAP Where to find the free fan zones

Travel

Wondering if you could afford a trip to Paris for the Games? Well we’re not going to pretend that Paris is a cheap city, but travel websites are mostly listing prices during the Paralympics as at or even slightly below seasonal averages.

The hotel booking website kayak is offering hotels from around €100 a night (for a double or twin room) while Booking.com is offering hotels from around €100 a night and apartments at slightly less. Meanwhile Airbnb is listing apartments or studios that sleep two people from €65 a night.

When it comes to travel, prices are again looking about average for the season – if you’re happy to travel on a weekday Eurostar has tickets for €73 per person going from London, while Easyjet is offering outbound flights from €75 from London, returns from €35.

Flying from the US is naturally more expensive, but here too prices are within seasonal norms, with Skyscanner offering flights from New York from €500.

Go on, you know you want to . . .

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PARIS

Can Paris make the Metro ‘fully accessible’ for people with disabilities?

Disability rights groups and leaders from the Paris region have signed a pact promising to make the Paris Metro accessible for people with disabilities - here's what they're actually agreeing to and how long this could take.

Published: 10 September 2024 17:15 CEST
Can Paris make the Metro 'fully accessible' for people with disabilities?

On the penultimate day of the Paris Paralympic Games, the head of the region, Valérie Pécresse, signed a pact with the city of Paris and the APF-France Handicap association to engage in the ‘titanic’ project of making the Paris Metro system accessible to people with disabilities.

The Games had highlighted just how poorly Paris scores when it comes to accessibility, with its Metro system almost entirely barred to people in wheelchairs or those with reduced mobility.

Pécresse, who is also the head of Ile-de-France Mobilités, noted the importance of updating the Metro system in light of the city’s ageing population and for environmental reasons. Pécresse has also called for holding a local referendum to get Parisians on board.

During the Paralympics closing ceremony, the president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Andrew Parsons, referenced Pécresse’s announcement.

“We all have a collective responsibility to take advantage of the momentum of the Paralympic Games to make this world more inclusive (…) We must enable people with disabilities to excel off the playing field.

“The best Paralympic legacies are those that continue after the Games and I call on all those involved to make the dream of an accessible Paris Metro a dazzling reality,” he said.

Then he addressed Pécresse specifically, adding: “Thank you to the President of the Île-de-France region Valérie Pécresse for her ambition to make the Metro accessible.”

What are the specifics of the plan?

So far, things are quite vague. In fact even calling this a ‘plan’ might be going too far – what the leaders signed was more of a statement of ambition.

The earliest estimates suggest that such a project would require between €15-20 billion in funding over a period of 20 years, which Pécresse proposed would be shared equally between the city of Paris, the region of Ile-de-France and the State, Le Figaro reported.

Pécresse suggested to the French press that the work could begin with Metro Line 6, which would be easier to make accessible due to the fact that it is mostly above-ground. 

Nevertheless, work on this line alone would cost between €600 and €800 million.

The goal would be to finally make the Metro accessible for people with reduced mobility – although there are some Metro stations that will never be entirely accessible, due to historical constraints and ‘an already congested Paris underground’, MesInfos reported. 

In terms of how the project would be paid for, Paris deputy mayor, Lamia El Araje, who focuses on accessibility for people, said: “We have to go and find the revenue,” noting a possible increase in the tourist tax, which she argued has been done in other international capitals such as Berlin and New York.

In Paris, this tax currently ranges from €0.65 (per night per person) for the most basic campsites to €14.95 for the highest end hotels (palaces).

READ MORE: How much is the ‘tourist tax’ in France?

What is the Paris Metro situation currently?

As things stand, only 29 metro stations on just two lines (11 and 14) are accessible to people with reduced mobility.

The RER (commuter train) assures that lines A and B, as well as the tram and bus networks, are intended to be accessible.

READ MORE: ANALYSIS: How accessible is Paris for people with disabilities?

However, there are still some challenges on these services be too. A bus line is deemed accessible once 70 percent of its stops are classified that way, which means many stops are not available for people with reduced mobility. This may be due to technical issues, such as an inability to enlarge or raise the sidewalk.

Also, most buses only allow for a maximum of one wheelchair.

As for the city’s tram system – the challenge is that most trams only serve the city outskirts and suburbs, so they are not very useful for tourists or people needing to get into the city centre.

Although the RER, the commuter train that serves the city and its outer suburbs – including links into Paris from its two airports – might be more ‘accessible’ than the Metro, many stations require the assistance of a person working there.

This means that a person with a disability would need to plan or call ahead to ensure staff will be present to assist them.

In the future, the new Grand Paris Express lines (15, 16, 17 and 18) will be entirely accessible, which means that 68 accessible stations will be added to the Paris Metro network by 2030.

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