Paris 2024 Olympics: 35K police officers to be deployed for opening ceremony – National | 24CA News
To pull off essentially the most audacious opening ceremony in Olympic historical past, French organizers at the moment are — actually — on the identical web page.
France’s authorities, the organizing committee president for the 2024 Paris Games and the French capital’s mayor signed an 11-page safety protocol Tuesday that for the primary time publicly laid out a few of the gritty particulars of their planning to protect the unprecedented July 26 opening ceremony from the threats of terrorism, drone assaults and different dangers for the large crowds and 10,500 athletes.
A notable change is that the tons of of hundreds of spectators who will watch the open-air gala without spending a dime, unfold alongside a 6-kilometre parade route on the River Seine, might want to pre-register for tickets. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, in command of Olympic safety, had been pushing for that shift so throngs of non-paying spectators will be allotted designated spots on the river’s higher embankments, separated from 100,000 different friends paying for a better, waterside view.
In the face of specialists’ misgivings concerning the measurement and complexity of the safety operation, Darmanin, organizing committee president Tony Estanguet and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo spoke at a news convention in protection of France’s resolution to make use of the middle of town because the venue for the extravaganza, ditching the security of a standard stadium setting for the primary time.
It guarantees nice tv if all goes effectively, showcasing iconic monuments and the Seine that’s being cleaned up for Olympic swimming. But the distinctive logistical and safety necessities might backfire spectacularly in entrance of a worldwide viewers for France if there are main issues.
“When France organizes the Games — the last time was 100 years ago — it does so with ambition,” Estanguet stated. “It’s a challenge to organize a ceremony with these conditions but, again, it’s the biggest audience that France will ever have had, the most beautiful showcase. Our responsibility is to create dreams, to show how incredible this country is.”
Paris’ plans are gargantuan in different methods, too:
— The athletes will probably be paraded from east to west alongside the river aboard 91 boats, with 25 different craft in reserve for breakdowns or different wants. There may even be about 30 boats for safety; the river might get crowded. There will probably be trial runs beginning this July. The complete occasion, together with the water-borne parade to the foot of the Eiffel Tower, a creative and musical present, and the official ceremony with the lighting of the Olympic flame and attended by heads of state is anticipated to final about 3 1/2 hours.
— With a deliberate deployment of 35,000 law enforcement officials — swallowing up a large chunk of France’s whole of 250,000 — Paris’ ceremony will dwarf “Operation Golden Orb,” Britain’s enormous policing operation for the coronation of King Charles III. It mobilized almost 13,000 law enforcement officials. London’s police commissioner stated it was the most important safety operation that his 194-year-old Metropolitan Police pressure had ever led.
— In all, 30,000 officers will probably be mobilized on common per day through the July 26-Aug. 11 Olympics, rising to as many as 45,000 on the busiest days within the Paris area, Darmanin informed senators in October. Police holidays will probably be canceled in June, July and early August with “very rare exceptions” and different occasions that might have wanted policing will probably be postponed, he stated. The minister warned of “enormous public order problems if, clearly, things go wrong.”
An acute concern within the wake of a number of assaults by the Islamic State group that killed 147 folks in Paris and its surrounds in 2015 is that the present is perhaps a goal for terrorism. Bomb-carrying drones are additionally a fear. “It’s a totally new threat,” Darmanin stated.
There are additionally issues about managing the large crowds and whether or not organizers will be capable to recruit personal safety guards in enough numbers.
“It’s very ambitions and it’s true that many experts have voiced opposition,” stated Bertrand Cavallier, the previous commander of France’s nationwide gendarmerie police coaching heart, talking in a telephone interview. “The physical configuration is very complex.”
Among different challenges, he cited a threat of spectators falling into the river or tumbling from the Seine’s higher embankments onto the paying crowds under. The safety protocol signed Tuesday, nevertheless, specified that there will probably be a niche between the spectators and the higher parapets, extensive sufficient for safety and rescue companies to go.
There can also be the potential of protests after sustained and typically violent demonstrations this 12 months towards pension reforms pushed by President Emmanuel Macron.
“There’s a desire to present a very beautiful image of France. It’s true that the Seine, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the rest are very evocative. So behind this is big publicity campaign to showcase France. And there’s also a political dimension. I think President Macron wants to mark his presidency,” Cavallier stated. “But the risk is there.
“The idea is very seductive,” he added. “Realizing it is going to take considerable work.”
Civil liberty campaigners have additionally sounded the alarm that Olympic safety measures threat eroding freedoms. Critics have raised privateness issues about video surveillance know-how that will probably be used on an experimental foundation, combining cameras with synthetic intelligence software program to flag potential safety dangers corresponding to deserted packages or crowd surges. Authorities are including tons of of surveillance cameras in areas that may host Olympic occasions. Critics contend that intrusive, lasting safety is usually a poisonous legacy of the Olympics.
Policing is already being ramped up. Darmanin has spoken of a marketing campaign “of harassment, of cleaning” of crime in areas internet hosting Olympic websites.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
