To raise the subject of security for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games with the Paris City Hall or the interministerial delegation for the (Olympic) Games, headed by the former Paris police prefect Michel Cadot, is like entering a labyrinth. E-mails, phone calls and refusals, which are suggested before being lifted, finally lead to a silent dead end. The services, we are to understand on the condition that we accept an approved terminology, "work in mutual understanding," but "schedule constraints" render any reply impossible.
The subject is volatile, tricky to say the least. After the fiasco of the handling of the football Champions League final at the Stade de France on May 28, it is difficult to declare a security strategy for which all aspects have not yet been fully decided. In hosting the "largest sporting event in decades in France," according to the staff of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the country is exposing itself to all kinds of risks: political, diplomatic and reputational.
The organizers did not choose the easiest way to minimize those risks, opting for an opening ceremony on July 26, which no one knows anything about yet. But it has already been announced as a river fantasy: 160 boats, 10,500 athletes, 45 minutes along six kilometers of navigation passing under 17 bridges from Pont d'Austerlitz to Pont d'Iéna. And no less than 600,000 spectators, including 100,000 on the lower quays.
The former police prefect Didier Lallement was firmly opposed to this, preferring the secure setting of the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The watery creation, entrusted to the scenographer Thierry Reboul, promises a great show. The management of security for the extraordinary event, on the other hand, is giving the public authorities a hard time.
"A ceremony on the Seine is just about the worst configuration imaginable," said Bertrand Cavallier. He is a recognized specialist in policing, the "2nd section" general, who has left active service but can be recalled at any time, and the former head of the national training center for gendarmerie forces in Saint-Astier (Dordogne, southwestern France), supervisor of the G8 summit in Evian (eastern France) in 2003. He is now the head of Eykues, a consulting firm.
According to him, the configuration of the site, the crowd and "the existence of a waterway" require "a construction accurate to the millimeter," with precise spectator zoning along the docks and "an extremely dense presence of law enforcement, capable of immediate intervention in case of transgression or problem," to evacuate troublemakers or take care of potential health emergencies.
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