2023-09-21 05:45:09
The Stade-Vélodrome and the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica, in Marseille, October 17, 2021. NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP
Ensuring the protection of two heads of state without eliminating any festive moment of popular fervor. Manage a public march of one kilometer, while simultaneously controlling sixty thousand faithful at the entrance to the Stade-Vélodrome. Pope Francis’ visit to Marseille, where he will also meet the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, is, for the French state, a complex security challenge.
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Frédérique Camilleri, Bouches-du-Rhône police chief, worked on the file for nine months to deliver a “device never seen before in the history of Marseille”. Five thousand police officers and gendarmes, reinforced by a thousand security agents, are mobilized on Friday September 22 and Saturday September 23. To reach this total, a few hundred civil servants on leave on those days were recalled throughout the department.
The Pope is expected at Marseille-Provence airport, in the town of Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône), Friday at 4:15 p.m. He will be welcomed there by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne.
The Holy Father will be preceded to all the sites where he must go by mine clearance teams. At Notre-Dame de la Garde, first. Then, Saturday, at the Palais du Pharo and the Stade-Vélodrome.
Strict filtering
A modification of the program, announced Wednesday September 20 in The Vatican Bulletin, came to upset the prepared system. The meeting on Saturday with people in precarious situations desired by Pope Francis will not be held, as planned, at the archbishopric, but at the house of the Missionaries of Charity. A very symbolic choice: the mission is located in the heart of one of the poorest areas of Marseille, on the edge of the 1st arrondissement. At the junction of the Saint-Maura and Belle-de-Mai districts, which historically welcome the most recent and poorest immigrants. A reconnaissance of the security services had to be organized urgently on Wednesday September 20.
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Like what was done during Emmanuel Macron’s travels when he came to present the “Marseille en grand” plan, the police headquarters chose to set up large airtight perimeters around the places of the event. With filtering as strict as it is distant. At the Stade-Vélodrome, only people with a ticket for mass, scheduled for 4:15 p.m., will be able to approach the enclosure. On the Prado, where the popemobile must start its journey at 3:30 p.m., Saturday 23, access will only be possible from 9:30 a.m.
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