Jacques Serais / Photo credits: GONZALO FUENTES / POOL / AFP
Three months before the Olympic Games, the intelligence services strongly advise considering an option other than the Seine for the athletes’ parade for fear of the terrorist threat. Emmanuel Macron believes that it is necessary “to take responsibility for this opening ceremony” while evoking “fallback scenarios”.
As the deadline for the Olympic Games approaches, the intelligence services strongly advise thinking about an option other than the Seine for the athletes’ parade. This Thursday, the Head of State raised the hypothesis on the occasion of the inauguration of the Games aquatic center in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Despite the Islamist terrorist threat, Emmanuel Macron does not want to change plans at this stage. “We have to take responsibility for this opening ceremony. We have to prepare for it with a lot of strength. France is a country which has unfortunately been under terrorist threat for several years. It is sometimes exogenous or endogenous and this is unfortunately what we have “had to experience a lot of attacks recently. We have also increased vigilance and the Vigipirate posture following the attacks in Moscow. We will be ready,” he declared.
“Fallback scenarios”
The Head of State also cultivates the spirit of ‘at the same time’ and leaves himself a little more than three months before the event, the exit doors. “If the threat were to evolve, if we considered that the circumstances were necessary, we have fallback scenarios,” he continued.
These scenarios are kept secret. As a reminder, last week, according to information from Europe 1, the General Directorate of Internal Security tried to convince the Minister of the Interior to move on to a plan B.