The deputy mayor of Paris Pierre Rabadan told GSW Paris of the city's sporting ambitions leading up to the Paris 2024 Games ©GSW

The deputy mayor of Paris, Pierre Rabadan, has told Global Sports Week (GSW) Paris that sport can act as a huge catalyst for society as the city prepares to host the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Olympics and Paralympics the following year.

"These events will have a massive importance for people living here," he said from the Tour Eiffel base of this year’s GSW hybrid operation.

"We have a lot of ambitions around the Olympic and Paralympic Games - making sports in the city firstly, but we have other things we would like to improve in the city, for example swimming in the Seine.

"That is one of our massive objectives, and we have a lot of impact and legacy we would like to give to our population.

"What we want to create with Paris 2024 is very ambitious – a new kind of Olympics.

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, welcomed the Global Sports Week that is operating from the Tour Eiffel and spoke of the ambition for Paris 2024 to be
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, welcomed the Global Sports Week that is operating from the Tour Eiffel and spoke of the ambition for Paris 2024 to be "a new type of Olympics" in a recorded message ©Getty Images

"I think we have to invest more in the practice of sports, but at the same time in education, so in making sports and all around the sports.

"We have this ambition in the city of Paris, we would like to invest in the city to make it more easy to practice and to attract people who are far away from an everyday sports practice and to be able to catch them.

"We have to recreate some relationships with clubs and all the federal sports, but we want to make free sports all around in the city."

In a recorded message the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, spoke of the "massive legacy" that would be left by the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, adding: "A new type of Olympics will be starting here in Paris.

"We have to invest more to make sport easier to practice, and that is a massive challenge.

"We need to show people that sport is at the heart of our lives and our cities."