The contours of the famous opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, scheduled for July 26, 2024 on the Seine, are gradually becoming clearer. Between 140 and 170 boats will be involved in this event where 10,000 athletes will be present on the river during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, an unprecedented nautical parade on the Seine. “It’s a huge challenge that will be to get 140 to 170 boats from the east of Paris, on the edge of Ivry, and to get them from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadéro”, 6 km more in the west, said this Thursday the prefect of the region Marc Guillaume during a point before the regional council of Ile-de-France.
Between the desire to offer the world an exceptional event and the imperative of security, the preparation of the parade proves to be a headache for the organizers. Like the number of spectators (from 400,000 to 600,000), the number of boats is also the subject of discussion.
“When the Greek boat”, first according to Olympic tradition, “will arrive at the Trocadéro, the French boat which will leave last will probably not have left yet”, illustrated Marc Guillaume, underlining the “logistical challenge to manage to ensure so that the 10,000 athletes can, with the pontoons, get on all these boats in eastern Paris”.
Regarding the need for private security guards for the competition sites, estimated at 25,000 by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, the prefect’s objective is now “to have approximately 15,000 training and recruitments”. At the end of February, only 3,000 of these agents had been hired and 1,800 were in training.
The Seine decontaminated and Porte Maillot liberated for the start of the Games
But “we are going to call by September the 56,000 job seekers who are in jobs close to private security or who have been job seekers for more than two years”, indicated Marc Guillaume. With the regional council, the prefecture is looking for “other audiences, students, young people from priority neighborhoods”.
On the sites in progress for the Games, those related to the depollution of the Seine will be “carried out”, reaffirmed Marc Guillaume. Depolluted “at 2% two and a half years ago”, the river will reach a depollution rate this summer “of 60-65% which will allow tests events to stand”, the objective being “a rate of 75%” for the Olympic Games.
The prefect was also reassuring on the extension sites for line 14 and RER E, which are causing concern. “The entire Porte Maillot will be released” for the start of the Games, he said.
