EWhat if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suddenly disrupted the organization of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games? The Paris 2024 Organizing Committee assures that this is not (yet?) a subject, and reaffirms its obsession with “guarantee the safety of athletes” in the event of a threat in less than ten months. As for the Ministry of the Interior, we do not wish to comment.
Yet what this might entail, particularly for the opening ceremony, needs to be considered now. “If today someone officially tells you that there is no threat to Paris 2024, they are incompetent”sums up a good connoisseur of the file. “This is one more problem for Paris 2024”notes Jean-Baptiste Guégan, author of several works on the geopolitics of sport.
This subject of the opening ceremony was already highly sensitive, because on July 26, 2024, the delegations of athletes will parade on the Seine and welcome nearly half a million spectators on the river quays. Which gives a lot of white hair to public officials, who will have to ensure the security of this parade. So, if we add to this an international context made very flammable by a conflict which promises to be long and deadly…
The Israeli Olympic committee – it is not the only one – has never been very enthusiastic about the idea of a river parade potentially open to all terrorist risks. He still wanted to officially reassure at the end of August, and to dispel doubts about his participation, by specifying, ” unequivocal “, “trust the French security services for the security of our delegation”.
There is no doubt that the Mossad, more than ever on edge in the face of increased risk, will be even more closely associated, like the American secret services, with the French preparations. Without playing the bird of ill omen, the specter of Munich 1972 is never far away when it comes to Israel.
“The precipitate of international relations”
The opening ceremony, however, is not the only area where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be exported during the Games. How could the 10,500 athletes in the Olympic village, a veritable tower of Babel, remain deaf and blind to the convulsions of the world? What would happen if an Olympian from a country whose government supports Hamas refused to compete against an Israeli?
What if the delegation or an athlete from the Jewish state were to be booed? If the flag were to be burned on the banks of the Seine or at the Stade de France, in Seine-Saint-Denis? The Palestinian question has always been the subject of fierce debate in French society.
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