Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games: France Médias Monde and the commune of Île-Saint-Denis join forces for “Africa Station”
Related project
Paris Médias 2024In just under 100 days, the people of France and the African continent will meet in an open-air space in the heart of Seine-Saint-Denis: “Africa Station”, the largest fan zone for African athletes. A true sporting and cultural festival that France Médias Monde and its subsidiary, CFI, are joining by signing a new partnership with the commune of Île-Saint-Denis.
This is a key milestone for journalistic coverage of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games: on 17 April, 100 days before the opening ceremony, Marie-Christine Saragosse, President and CEO of France Médias Monde, and Mohamed Gnabaly, Mayor of Île-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis department), signed a partnership agreement to welcome journalists from France Médias Monde to “Africa Station”.
RFI, the official radio station of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, will set up a radio studio and journalists from France 24 and Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD) will also be able to set themselves up there to meet the athletes on location.
The goal of this partnership is clear: to forge links between populations, not only by showcasing the athletes and unique atmosphere of the African continent, but also by focusing on the inhabitants of the Seine-Saint-Denis department. Public broadcasts, organised events, meetings and reports will be arranged on location as part of the significant editorial framework used by the international public audiovisual group.
A pop-up editorial office to provide coverage without borders
While “Africa Station” will make it possible to host journalists from France Médias Monde, this place of celebration will also become the meeting point for their colleagues from Africa and the Arab world, gathered at the invitation of CFI. Throughout the Games, the French agency will have a pop-up editorial office set up in the heart of the village, in which journalists invited as part of the Paris Médias 2024 project launched last March at the International Agora for Journalism in Tours, will participate.
Setting up this editorial office is no trivial matter. The Olympic Games receive too little coverage in the African media, due in particular to the high cost of broadcasting rights and difficulties in obtaining accreditation for their journalists. The Paralympic Games are a unique opportunity to showcase the diversity of societies and promote the inclusion of people with disabilities, but they suffer from severe under-representation in the media of the Arab world. To combat these two issues, the Paris Médias 2024 project offers journalists from Africa and the Arab world training in covering high-level sporting events, and thus makes it possible to support the production of innovative content on events at the Games by hosting them within “Africa Station”, at the heart of the (numerous) performances by African athletes at this global sporting event.
Thierry Vallat, Chair and Managing Director of CFI, who was present at the signing of the agreement on 17 April, is delighted with this partnership: “The journalists benefiting from the Paris Médias 2024 project will meet with sportsmen and women from Africa, as well as all those interested in sport or topics related to the continent, in a professional and friendly environment. This ceremony, which will be heart-warming and filled with beautiful encounters, is a sign of incredibly good times to come this summer, during the Games!”
Would you like further information on the Paris Médias 2024 project?You can now visit the webpage for the project at: https://cfi.fr/en/project/paris-medias-2024
