2023-11-30 19:51:32
His interview given to Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui in France on Tuesday sparked numerous reactions. The reason ? An eruptive subject, that of the traffic restrictions caused by the security system deployed during the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024. In this interview, the Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez lists the perimeters that he intends to set up around Olympic sites in Paris and the inner suburbs. A method that he came to defend during a one and a half hour hearing before the Senate Law Committee on Thursday afternoon.
“These are usual practices of the police services,” insists Laurent Nuñez, detailing the four-layer security system around the Olympic sites: the perimeter of the site itself managed by the organizing committee, the protection perimeter where anyone is searched to gain access, the perimeter prohibiting motorized traffic and that regulating this same traffic.
“When there are demonstrations, these perimeters are also present”
“When there are demonstrations in Paris or for the Rugby World Cup, these perimeters are also present,” insists the police prefect, with the desire to trivialize the nature of the restrictions put in place. He took the opportunity to assure that a period of consultation on the subject had begun and would extend until mid-January. Objective: determine to whom and how to issue exemptions to enter the red zone, the traffic ban zone, on two or four motorized wheels.
“We have planned a lot,” underlines Laurent Nuñez, referring to taxis which would drop off residents, people who have rented rooms with private parking, doctors, visitors “of a vulnerable person”. “We tried to make these exemptions correspond to the real personal and economic lives of people,” he continues, recalling that cyclists and pedestrians would be authorized to enter these perimeters. Only the opening ceremony will be an exception, with a restricted zone which will also concern pedestrians deployed around the Seine “a few days” before July 26.
Those potentially affected will have to register on an online platform to have a pass during the period concerned. “A QR code? I don’t know anything about it, we’ll see what people say during the consultations,” slips Laurent Nuñez, indicating that he was relying on a decree of May 2011 to deploy this platform. “The state of emergency during the pandemic was constraints on another level, and criminal ones,” says the police prefect. The constraint for me is that you park your vehicle and continue on foot. »
“We must avoid annoying the French as much as possible,” slips the senator from Bas-Rhin related Les Républicains, André Reichardt, referring to the unpopularity of the security perimeters deployed each year during the Strasbourg Christmas market. “I have the feeling that a platform is less boring to people. Common sense argues in this direction, but it must be fluid, otherwise it will be painful for the police officers and for the people concerned,” replied the police prefect.
“A QR code for walking in Paris is completely false”
Questioned on the subject, Laurent Nuñez affirmed that there would be no searches of vehicle trunks, unless there was a specific terrorist threat over a given period. Park your car in red zones? “Parking, we will regulate it later,” replies the police chief. We haven’t worked on it yet, it’s too early. But if we allow local residents who have private parking to enter, it is because we want to leave certain places free. »
“I read that you would need a QR code to walk in Paris, that’s completely false,” says Laurent Nuñez to the rapporteurs of the mission on the security of the Olympic Games, Agnès Canayer and Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie.
Two particular points were also discussed during this exchange: that of fan zones, the number of which the police headquarters intends to limit to avoid dispersing private security agents. And that of the passage of the Olympic flame through Paris on July 14, 15 and 26. “It will be a moving path, the traffic disruption will be quite limited,” explains Laurent Nuñez.
“There have been much heavier restrictions on movement than what we put in place in other capitals,” highlights the police prefect, insisting on his “fluid” exchanges with the International Olympic Committee.
#Traffic #restrictions #Olympics #remember #hearing #prefect #police #Senate