Asked about the terrorist risk two days after a knife attack in the heart of Paris, the Minister of Sports affirmed that the government is not considering relocating the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games to the Seine, assuring that it will not There was no “plan B”.
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The Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra assured Monday December 4 that relocating the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, planned on the Seine, to Paris, next summer, was not “a hypothesis” currently considered, despite of 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. If Amélie Oudéa-Castéra indicated that there was no “plan B”, she clarified that “a certain number of adjustment variables” did however exist.
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”.
“Security challenge”
Asked whether the relocation of the ceremony was part of the “second plans”, the minister declared: “This is not the hypothesis on which we are working.”
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”.
“Undoubtedly, we have a very particular security challenge at the opening ceremony, we have known this since the first day,” she recalled, listing in particular the means planned: “Deminers, dog teams (…) we We are equipped for all of 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 ‘red’ perimeters. blue’ (concerning traffic) which will make it possible to secure the area in depth”, she added.
“We have the capacity to secure this event,” she promises.
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The attacker chose the Eiffel Tower district for its “symbolic” side rather than as an “Olympic site”, said Emmanuel Grégoire, the first deputy of the Paris town hall, on France Info on Monday.
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.
With AFP