The inaugural ceremony on July 26, 2024 causes insomnia for those responsible for security. It will be a grandiose, seductive spectacle, in the heart of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but an unprecedented police challenge. For the first time, the athletes will not parade in the stadium but on barges, along the Seine. Much of the public will have free access to both banks. How to control six kilometers of journey by the river, with its bridges, and a mass of at least 600,000 people? President Emmanuel Macron, Mayor Anne Hidalgo and the organizers believe that it is an acceptable risk and worth taking.
The opening fluvial spectacle will be a critical moment of the Olympic Games in Paris, a city that will repeat as host after a century. In 1924, France was just recovering from World War I. The figure of Johnny Weissmuller, the American swimmer who would later play Tarzan in the cinema, remains in the memory of that sports competition.
Victim of multiple jihadist attacks in recent years, not only does Paris 2024 plan for the potential terrorist threat but also the danger of other types of attacks, such as cyber sabotage, in addition to the conditions of a very complex geopolitical framework in the event that the Ukrainian war is not over yet.
There will be an impressive protection device, with 35,000 police officers, 10,000 soldiers and –in theory– more than 20,000 private agents, although regarding the latter there are still serious doubts as to whether such a large number of specialized and licensed personnel will be available.
Parliament is preparing to approve a law that will allow, on an experimental basis, to control facilities and flows of people with algorithmic video surveillance to react immediately to any suspicious event. The air force is testing sophisticated systems to detect and destroy hostile drones. These devices are one of the nightmares. It is a technology within everyone’s reach and easy to adapt for terrorist purposes. Just imagine the panic that a simple grenade dropped by a drone on a stadium would cause.
“These Games are the biggest security challenge that France has experienced in its entire history,” the deputy Stéphane Mazars, from Macron’s party -Renaissance-, co-chairman of the National Assembly committee that has supervised the preparations for the event, admits to La Vanguardia. sports. “Unfortunately we are in a moment of evolution of society in which zero risk does not exist –adds Mazars–. It is necessary to use all means, to anticipate, but the Olympics must be precisely the occasion to sublimate all these risks because there is a will to bring together peoples, countries, in an exercise of international cohesion”.
Security also depends on avoiding petty crime and the rogue of false entries. Both factors – especially the first one – contributed to the fiasco of the last Champions League final, in May of last year, between Liverpool and Real Madrid. The match was played at the Stade de France, which will be the main venue for the Games. France, severely criticized by Uefa for its organizational and police mismanagement, cannot afford to have similar scenes of chaos or fans assaulted by gangs in the vicinity again.
One of the objectives of the Olympic event is precisely to contribute to the positive metamorphosis of highly problematic suburbs on the northern Parisian periphery, in the Seine-Saint Denis department, the poorest in metropolitan France and with a very high density of immigrant population from non-community origin. In addition to locating the stadium for the athletics events, the Olympic Village for athletes and the residence for journalists are being built in this area.
With less than five hundred days to go before the start of the Games, optimism reigns over the pace of work on the new facilities and respect for deadlines. There is concern about whether it will arrive in time to complete the extension of metro line 14, with automatic trains -without drivers-, a fact that is an advantage because it would continue to function in the event of a strike.
In Saint Ouen and neighboring Saint Denis, the buildings for the Olympic Village, where some 14,000 people, including athletes and coaches, will be housed, are well advanced. “This area will be finished in July,” says Pinto with conviction, a giant of Angolan origin, which controls the entry and exit of trucks. In other buildings there is talk that they will be delivered at the end of the year. It will be necessary to furnish the floors and condition them.
One of the optimists is Roger Barbary, who runs the Halle des Docks project, a covered pavilion with a varied gastronomic offer, not far from the Olympic Village. The Docks are an old industrial area, next to the Seine, which was previously occupied by the electrical equipment factories of the multinational Alstom and which has now been transformed into blocks of flats, offices, equipment and a park. For years it has been one of the most ambitious urban regeneration projects in the metropolitan area of ??the capital.
“There is an urban dynamic that is advancing,” Barbary explains. For me, Saint Ouen is the new Brooklyn of Paris, an old working-class, poor suburb that experienced deindustrialization between the eighties and the end of the last century and which has now been turned around. The Games contribute. They have been the pretext to use more resources and speed up the process. It’s like a snowball. Many families from Paris settle here.”
There are inhabitants of Saint Ouen who are more skeptical. Marcelle, 88, has lived here since she was young. She shows doubt that the Olympic Village will improve the city. “I don’t know, I don’t know, the bad life will continue,” warns this retired nurse. She complains about crime, night vandalism against cars and the excessive presence of foreign population. “Before it was very different”, Marcelle continues, and she whispers with dissimulation and disgust: “There are many North Africans”.
–But there have always been many foreigners here, right?
Yes, but there are foreigners and foreigners. With Spanish, Portuguese or Italian there is no problem, but now it is different. Too much is too much. This is no longer France.
There are no Olympic Games without controversy and Paris could not be an exception. Some media are being very critical, almost catastrophic. The weekly Marianne came to write a few days ago, on the cover, that it would be “the Games from hell.” In addition to the anguish over security, the magazine raised the alarm about the cost overruns due to inflationary pressure, the unknowns about transportation –thousands of bus drivers are missing– and outrageously expensive tickets.
It is true that there will be hundreds of thousands of popular tickets, at 24 euros, but the fees to attend the most emblematic events of the Games are prohibitive. Up to 690 euros for the final of the 200 meter dash, for example.
The organizers are proud that historical heritage has been incorporated into the competition, which will generate a special magic and provide very attractive images for television. The fencing will be held at the Grand Palais. Beach volleyball, under the Eiffel tower. The horse riding, in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
When the threshold of five hundred days before the Games was lowered on March 14, Macron posted a short video on Twitter in which he highlighted, as a permanent legacy and “small revolution”, that the Seine and Marne rivers will once again be suitable for bathing, prohibited for hygienic reasons since 1923. There has been a huge effort in sanitation and infrastructure to make this possible. Some Olympic events will take place in the waters of the Seine, such as the swimming segment of the triathlon. As of 2025, barring any setbacks, beaches will open on the river, in the heart of Paris.
The President of the Republic promised to welcome the ten million visitors that are expected during the Olympic event “in the best possible conditions” and reiterated his desire for it to be a success, not only for sports and organization but also “for the art of living to the French”. The Games offer Macron a unique opportunity, in his second and last term, to leave good memories of a presidency that has gone through very turbulent times of social unrest and violence. With the scenes of urban guerrilla, the incessant strikes and the tons of garbage not collected in recent days, due to the protest against the pension reform, it is hard to imagine a calm Games in Paris today. There is no other ambition, but the bet is risky.
