Thousands of people in the Île-de-France region will be encouraged to move to "temporary regional facilities" across France, freeing up space for Paris 2024 visitors.

Nearly 5,000 hotel rooms in the Paris area are currently being used for emergency accommodation, with the owners wanting to use these for Olympic and Paralympic guests instead.

France is also due to host this year's Rugby World Cup in September and October and it has been claimed that people will end up in better conditions which correspond to their situation.

The plan has attracted criticism, however, from those who claim that homeless people are simply wanted out of the way before Paris 2024 begins.

Oudéa-Castéra denied that the plan - which will largely impact migrants - was linked to the Olympics.

"We shouldn't make the Olympics the scapegoat of all our frustrations," she said to France 2. 

"It's important not to distort the facts and blame the Olympic Games for all our social problems.

"I don't want us to mix everything up. 

"We do have major challenges over emergency shelter, but it's not the Olympics' fault.

"Today we have around 200,000 emergency places, a record since 2017, and we know there's a very strong concentration in Île-de-France.

"We have to deal with this and offer a better service. 

"We cannot blame the Olympics for all the problems of society."

The Government has estimated that hotel capacity available to accommodate homeless people "will fall by 3,000 to 4,000 places" due to the major sporting events.

But Hadrien Clouet, from the left wing France Unbowed party, accused officials of taking on "the method of all authoritarian regimes and moving the homeless by force to hide them from sight of those taking part in the 2024 Olympics".

The head of homelessness charity the Federation for Solidarity Workers, Pascal Brice, said that taking people off the streets and into better conditions across France could be good in theory.

However, he said there was the danger of "putting people on buses" and then forgetting about them.

Homeless people were reportedly moved on before the Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

In China, people were allegedly shipped back to their home regions, while Brazilian campaigners said homeless people were forced out of tourist areas in the middle of the night.