France, March 30 -- Olympics naysayers would be given short shrift at the moment in and around the Paris suburbs of Le Bourget and Dugny.

Following the formal launch a €650 million regeneration project of 70 hectares, the self and the external perception of this flat plains hinterland some 20 kilometres to the north of Paris will undergo an existential change.

The new Gymnase Marie Paradis - named in homage of the first woman to climb Mont Blanc - forms the centrepiece of a revamped sports complex in the Le Bourget end of the grandly titled Cluster des Medias.

Cross a new footbridge over the A1 motorway into Dugny and voila Le Plateau and L'Air des Vents - two tranches of land dotted with slick new apartment blocks providing just...