“All of a sudden, we have the same feeling of pride as people living in the hypercenter,” said the mayor of St.-Ouen, Karim Bouamrane, 51, using his personal shorthand for the glamorous downtown playgrounds of the elites. “There was Los Angeles, Barcelona, Beijing, London, Sydney and, now, there is St.-Ouen.” Even before the Olympic Committee choose to invest in this economically depressed northern suburb, St.-Ouen was changing. But since then, and since Mr. Bouamrane’s election as mayor in 2020, the transformation seems turbocharged.
