He was the man to publicly lift the taboo of the existence of the famous plan B of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. And Emmanuel Macron is now the one who explains it in detail on camera. Under the glass roof of the Grand Palais, site of the fencing events this summer, the President of the Republic discussed “plans B and C” for the launch evening of the Games on Friday July 26, currently scheduled for the first time to make history outside of a stadium with a nautical parade on the Seine in the heart of the capital.
The fallback solutions lead, according to the tenant of the Élysée, to the Trocadéro, the place where the festivities must end. But also at the Stade de France. “We will do an analysis in real time and we are preparing a ceremony which would be limited to the Trocadéro, where we would not use the entire Seine, or even a ceremony which would be repatriated to the Stade de France, because that is what is done classically,” he explained Monday morning during an interview with BFM TV and RMC.
This is the first time that a manager has explained to this extent the alternatives to this ceremony on the river in the event of a security risk that is too dangerous. And at this point denies the philosophy of this exceptional evening, the contours of which Emmanuel Macron himself had revealed in the summer of 2021, explaining that France “works in parallel” to the conventional and closed framework of a stadium, like the enclosure of Saint-Denis. The unexpected announcement surprised, even tensed, the delegation of elected officials and representatives of the Paris 2024 organizing committee before the morning boarding at Roissy to reach Greece, where the Olympic flame will be lit on Tuesday in Olympia.
For a simple reason: the possibility of moving the ceremony to the Stade de France is extremely low because the scenario has not really been worked on. “It’s a subject that has never been raised before and we have never been asked to prepare for it,” confides an internal source to the Stade de France consortium, which will hand over the keys to the premises on June 1 at Paris 2024. To our knowledge, holding an opening ceremony here has never been considered. » “It’s a hypothesis,” admits another source in the organization of the Olympics.
No show planned if the ceremony moves to the Stade de France
From a security point of view, the option is perfectly tenable. The stadium is already scheduled to host the closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and it would be possible to put in place similar arrangements, with more escorts of athletes and officials expected. But the problem lies on other levels. First of all, the logistical part: without an opening ceremony on the agenda, the Stade de France must host the men’s rugby sevens events on July 24, 25 and 27, then the women’s tournament on July 28, 29 and 30 and the athletics from August 1st. Schedule an opening ceremony, with the inherent installation constraints, on the 26th? Impossible. Move the rugby players? Yes but where ?
“The homeless is not a plan B, let’s be clear. There are already events planned at the Stade de France and therefore it is not imaginable”, underlined in January in the Senate the interministerial delegate to the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Dijop), Michel Cadot. “We don’t realize but the technical studies to install the ceremony, prepare the transition with the athletics events, plan logistical storage, ensure security… It’s a work of several months, we insist at the Stade de France consortium. We could organize something very spectacular, but we would have to start now. »
Which is not the case, both logistically and artistically. According to our information, the artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies Thomas Jolly has not prepared paintings suitable for this space. In summary: there could be a ceremony, but no show in the event of relocation to Saint-Denis. It would then be a question, according to a source close to the matter, of “conducting only the strict protocol of this opening ceremony”, that is to say of declaring the Games open.
Could we still talk about the opening ceremony then? Not really. But for now, plan A on the Seine remains favored, despite the return to the maximum level of the Vigipirate plan at the end of March, with a possibility of withdrawal confined to the place chosen to conclude the parade, the Trocadéro. The only really worked plans.
