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Macron says Paris ready to deal with Olympic terror threat

December 21, 2023

The French president said "plan Bs, plan Cs" are in place and the unusual Olympic opening ceremony could be moved if needed.

https://p.dw.com/p/4aR8y
Gendarmes patrol the Champs de Mars area at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
Tens of thousands of police and soldiers will be deployed to secure the Paris Olympic GamesImage: Alain Apaydin/abaca/picture alliance

President Emmanuel Macron said France is prepared to move the 2024 Olympic opening ceremony away from the Seine River should the security situation require it.

He cited deadly extremist attacks that hit Paris in 2015 as an example of the type of severe crisis that could force a rethink of the July 26 ceremony.

"You're 15 days from the Olympic Games. You have a series of terrorist attacks. What do you do? Well, you don't organize [a ceremony] on the Seine," he said in a television interview with France 5 on Wednesday.

"Since we are professional, there are obviously plan Bs, plan Cs, et cetera," Macron said. "You have to be prepared for everything."

Seine at the center of Paris 2024 opening ceremony

Paris is due to host the Olympic Games from July 26 to August 11, 2024.

The opening ceremony is due to take place on the Seine instead of inside the Olympic stadium, and hundreds of thousands of people are expected to watch from the banks of the river that flows through Paris.

It would be the first Summer Games opening ceremony held outside of a usual stadium setting.

"We are preparing an opening ceremony that is unique, which I hope will make the French very proud," Macron told the public broadcaster. "It will be a moment of beauty, of real art, of celebrating sport and our values, with the Seine and the capital as the theater."

Paris cleans up the Seine for the Olympic Games

France on high alert

France raised its security alert to the highest level after a knife-wielding attacker stabbed a teacher to death outside a school in the north of the country in October.

Earlier this month, a German tourist was killed in a suspected terror attack close to the Eiffel Tower in central Paris. The perpetrator has reportedly pledged allegiance to the so-called "Islamic State."

Paris 2024 organizers ruled out a change of plans after that incident.

"There is no single fallback plan, but rather a variety of adaptation measures - what we call in our jargon contingency plans - which are not intended to be public in any other way," Paris 2024 said.

lo/sms (AP, Reuters)