Where will the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games take place on July 26? Since yesterday and an interview with Emmanuel Macron for BFMTV, doubt has loomed. The President of the Republic has, in fact, announced that due to the terrorist threat, the festivities could leave the Seine to take place at the Trocadéro or the Stade de France. An announcement which comes 100 days before the start of the Games and which could disrupt preparations which began months ago.
The day after these announcements, Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra was questioned on the subject from Olympia, Greece, where she attended the lighting of the Olympic flame. “We are preparing to deliver the Games with an organization that is as impeccable as possible. The context is complex. There is this threat, this risk, and we must be lucid about all that,” she indicated in front of the microphones, ensuring that the ceremony on the Seine remained “the central plan”.
“The first requirement is first of all not to give up our desire to have this opening ceremony on the Seine,” she assures. This morning, the president of the organizing committee Tony Estanguet declared on RFI that this was the “really main and very probable plan”.
An “important meeting” next week
But the minister repeats, the security context must in no case be neglected. “These difficulties require us to be foresighted and responsible. The Head of State asked us to work on fallback scenarios while monitoring the evolution of the threat,” continues Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who assures that the safety of spectators is the “highest priority”.
In this case, while the conflict in the Middle East experienced a major turning point this weekend, is the dream of a ceremony across all of Paris still reasonable in terms of security? “We have a duty to anticipate all circumstances and be able to adjust our ceremony due to the context. There can be different gradations and different scenarios in these responses,” replies the minister. In the event of a withdrawal to the Trocadéro, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra assures that it will always remain “a ceremony with an artistic dimension”, but “in a different configuration”.
If no deadline is yet known, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra announces that an “important meeting” must be held “next week” before “meeting points”. “Everything is done in continuity with the Minister of the Interior and the Prefect of Police and with continuous assessment [de la menace] by the French intelligence services,” explains the minister. “I am working on plan A, I only know plan A, you have to have confidence in the work that is being done”, for her part, insisted the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo at the microphone of BFMTV and RMC.
