At the beginning of the month, the Minister of Sports and Games Amélie Oudéa-Castéra spoke of “work of discretion” around a possible plan B for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, scheduled for July 26 on the Seine. During an interview with RMC and BFM TV this Monday morning, Emmanuel Macron said a lot more.
In the event of an identified terrorist risk, “we have fallback scenarios,” indicated the President of the Republic. “There are plans B and even plans C and we are preparing them” he continued, referring to a ceremony which “would be limited to the Trocadéro, we would not do the whole Seine”, or even “repatriated to the Stadium of France “.
However, Emmanuel Macron especially insisted on the desire to see the event take place as planned on the river, in front of hundreds of thousands of people.
“Show the most beautiful face of France”
“We want the ceremony to be as beautiful as possible,” said the head of state. One of the elements of these Olympic and Paralympic Games is to show the most beautiful face of France, to show that we know how to do extraordinary things. It is in these moments that we build the future. »
“It’s a first in the world, we can do it and we will do it,” he said before being questioned about possible fallback scenarios. “We have given ourselves the means”, detailed Emmanuel Macron, referring to the work of the intelligence services or even ticketing systems for the low platforms (paid) but also the high platforms (free) “to know who is coming” .
“There will be a whole security perimeter around the ceremony, days before, I would even say weeks before. It will be a very large area, it will be a lot of constraints for individuals and businesses, one week before everything will be blocked. »