With France on Highest Alert, Olympics Organizers Plan Opening Ceremony Along Seine Under Unprecedented Security Protocol
variety.comElsa Keslassy International Correspondent With France on its highest level of security alert amid geopolitical turmoil in Ukraine and the Middle East, organizers behind the Paris Olympics are still going ahead with ambitious plans to host the opening ceremony along the Seine river on July 26.
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, said on Monday in an interview with French outlets BFM TV and RMC that the opening ceremony could relocate to an indoor location “depending on our analysis of the context.” “We have fallback scenarios.
There are plan Bs and plan Cs,” Macron said, citing the Stade de France as an alternate location. Under the current plans put together by Tony Estanguet, the gold-medal winning French athlete who presides over the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, as many as 10,500 athletes from all around the world will parade on boats along the six-kilometer Seine River.
Macron suggested the itinerary might be shortened. Original plans have already been downsized by French Interior minister Gerald Darmanin who said in January that the ceremony will be accessible to a crowd of approximately 300,000 spectators instead of the 600,000 people initially envisioned.
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