Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

France mounts security drill ahead of Olympic torch relay

French police tested their security plans for the Olympic torch relay on Friday, with a multi-layered ring of 100 officers set to be deployed to keep protesters at bay.

Published: 22 March 2024 16:11 CET
France mounts security drill ahead of Olympic torch relay
A participant takes part in a test day for the Olympic flame with training relay and security staff in Nogent-sur-Seine on March 22, 2024. (Photo by FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP)

Authorities are nervous about the potential for disruption of the relay, which will begin once the flame arrives in southern Marseille on May 8th ahead of the start of the Games on July 26th.

Environmental groups such as Extinction Rebellion, anarchist networks or pro-Palestinian demonstrators are seen as potential risks, while the security forces remain on high alert for terror attacks.

“For the party to be beautiful, it needs to be safe,” said chief Games organiser Tony Estanguet on Friday during the drill in the Aube area southeast of Paris that saw officers in plain-clothes jog alongside the torch bearer.

Anti-terror and riot police in vehicles as well as anti-drone specialists will be permanently but discreetly deployed as the torch moves around.

The Olympic flame is set to travel through 400 towns and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is desperate to avoid a repetition of the chaotic scenes in 2008 during the torch relay ahead of the Beijing Olympics which travelled through multiple countries.

French authorities had to repeatedly extinguish the flame and ended up cutting the relay through Paris because of protests by pro-Tibet activists and critics of China’s human rights record.

Speaking in January, Darmanin likened this year’s relay to the annual Tour de France bicycle race but “with more originality and difficulties”.

The flame will be lit in Olympia in Greece, then brought by boat to Marseille in a three-masted 19th-century French tall ship called the Belum.

Some media reports have suggested it will finish atop the Eiffel Tower, but organisers are keeping its resting place for the duration of the Games and the identity of the final torch bearer a closely held secret.

The opening ceremony is another major risk for French authorities, with athletes set to sail down the Seine in an armada of boats — the first time the Games have opened outside of the athletics stadium.

More than half a million people are set to watch in person, including 326,000 with tickets and an estimated 200,000 who will be able to observe the parade from buildings overlooking the waterway.

READ MORE: Hotels, tickets and scams: What to know about visiting Paris for the 2024 Olympics

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

The Olympic flame set sail on Saturday on its voyage to France on board the Belem, the Torch Relay reaching its climax at the revolutionary Paris Games opening ceremony along the river Seine on July 26.

Published: 27 April 2024 13:33 CEST
Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

“The feelings are so exceptional. It’s such an emotion for me”, Tony Estanguet, Paris Olympics chief organiser, told reporters before the departure of the ship from Piraeus.

He hailed the “great coincidence” how the Belem was launched just weeks after the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.

“These games mean a lot. It’s been a centenary since the last time we organised the Olympic games in our country,” he added.

The 19th-century three-masted boat set sail on a calm sea but under cloudy skies.

It was accompanied off the port of Piraeus by the trireme Olympias of the Greek Navy and 25 sailing boats while dozens of people watched behind railings for security reasons.

“We came here so that the children understand that the Olympic ideal was born in Greece. I’m really moved,” Giorgos Kontopoulos, who watched the ship starting its voyage with his two children, told AFP.

On Sunday, the ship will pass from the Corinth Canal — a feat of 19th century engineering constructed with the contribution of French banks and engineers.

‘More responsible Games’ 

The Belem is set to reach Marseille — where a Greek colony was founded in around 600 BCE — on May 8.

Over 1,000 vessels will accompany its approach to the harbour, local officials have said.

French swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first torch bearer in Marseille. His sister Laure was the second torch bearer in ancient Olympia, where the flame was lit on April 16.

Ten thousand torchbearers will then carry the flame across 64 French territories.

It will travel through more than 450 towns and cities, and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

It will then reach Paris and be the centre piece of the hugely imaginative and new approach to the Games opening ceremony.

Instead of the traditional approach of parading through the athletics stadium at the start of the Games, teams are set to sail down the Seine on a flotilla of boats in front of up to 500,000 spectators, including people watching from nearby buildings.

The torch harks back to the ancient Olympics when a sacred flame burned throughout the Games. The tradition was revived in 1936 for the Berlin Games.

Greece on Friday had handed over the Olympic flame of the 2024 Games, at a ceremony, to Estanguet.

Hellenic Olympic Committee chairman Spyros Capralos handed the torch to Estanguet at the Panathenaic Stadium, where the Olympics were held in 1896.

Estanguet said the goal for Paris was to organise “spectacular but also more responsible Games, which will contribute towards a more inclusive society.”

Organisers want to ensure “the biggest event in the world plays an accelerating role in addressing the crucial questions of our time,” said Estanguet, a member of France’s Athens 2004 Olympics team who won gold in the slalom canoe event.

A duo of French champions, Beijing 2022 ice dance gold medallist Gabriella Papadakis and former swimmer Beatrice Hess, one of the most successful Paralympians in history, carried the flame during the final relay leg into the Panathenaic Stadium.

Nana Mouskouri, the 89-year-old Greek singer with a worldwide following, sang the French and Greek anthems at the ceremony.

SHOW COMMENTS