The newly built athletes' village for this year's Paris Olympics was handed over to organisers on Thursday on schedule, a major milestone in preparations for the sporting extravaganza which begins on July 26. 

A symbolic key for the complex in the deprived Seine-Saint-Denis suburb north of Paris, which will house 14,000 people during the Olympics, was symbolically transferred from the Games' infrastructure group to chief organizer Tony Estanguet at a ceremony. 

(Cover: France's President Emmanuel Macron (C), surrounded by officials, visits the Paris 2024 Olympic village in Saint-Denis, northern Paris,  France, February 29, 2024. /CFP)