2023-12-04 11:59:23
The Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra assured Monday morning that relocating the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, planned on the Seine to Paris next summer, was not “a hypothesis” currently considered, despite the terrorist risk .
“We don’t have a plan B, we have a plan A in which there are several plans B,” she said on France Inter.
Two days after the attack at the entrance to the Bir-Hakeim bridge spanning the Seine in Paris, during which an assailant registered for Islamist radicalization and known for psychiatric disorders killed a German tourist with a knife and injured him with a hammer two other people, the Minister of Sports recalled that the “terrorist threat and in particular the Islamist threat exists”.
However, “it is not new and it is neither specific to France nor specific to the Games”, underlined the minister, who ensures that she is putting “everything in order to reduce it as much as possible with an absolute state of vigilance”.
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is due to take place at the end of July on the Seine, between the Pont d’Austerlitz and the Pont d’Iéna. Ms. Oudéa-Castéra said there was no “plan B”.
“There are a certain number of adjustment variables,” she nevertheless clarified.
She cited in particular the number of spectators during this ceremony, which will be fixed in the spring, and which can be “modulated”.
These adjustments will also concern “the number of festivities which will be authorized around the area and in Paris” and “the management of security perimeters”.
– “We have the capacity to secure the event” –
Asked whether the relocation of the ceremony was part of the “renewal plans”, the minister declared: “this is not the hypothesis on which we are working”.
Illustration of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine, in Paris, published by the Olympic Committee on December 15, 2021 / Paris 2024/AFP/Archives
Faced with the concern caused by the attack on Saturday evening, near the Eiffel Tower, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra recalled that security measures were “going to be greatly enhanced during the Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
“We undoubtedly have a very particular security challenge at the opening ceremony, we have known that since the first day,” she recalled, listing in particular the means planned: “Mine sweepers, canine teams (…) we are equipped with all this.
“And there is also the whole system around the security perimeters (…) in particular this Silt perimeter (from the Internal Security and Fight against Terrorism Law, editor’s note), but also the so-called red and blue perimeters (concerning the traffic, editor’s note) which will make it possible to secure the area in depth,” she added.
“We have the capacity to secure this event,” she promises.
The attacker chose the Eiffel Tower district more for its “symbolic” side than as an “Olympic site”, for his part estimated Monday on France Info Emmanuel Grégoire, the first deputy of the Paris town hall.
Recalling that the Rugby World Cup had just taken place without “any incident”, he believes that it is not “the Olympics and the moments of collective celebration that must be called into question”, but “the way in which we anticipate the risks in treating these individuals.
“I am sure that we will be able to prepare for these Olympics in a very satisfactory manner,” he said.
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