Almost flawless. Gérald Darmanin announced this Friday, August 2, that there had been “200 arrests since the start of the Olympic Games” in Île-de-France and welcomed a “very significant success in terms of security”, at the end of an Olympic week. On a visit to the police station in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), the resigning minister attributed the drop in crime around the Olympic sites in the Paris region to the “hyper-presence” of the police. On Twitter, the Minister of the Interior revealed some figures: – “25% of violent robberies” and “-40% of violence in transport”.
There have been “200 arrests since the start of the games” in the Paris area and its metropolitan area, he hammered home. A police source reported “180 people in custody”. In a complicated international security context with a significant terrorist threat weighing on France, Gérald Darmanin indicated that there had been “more than 700 administrative measures” (Micas) pronounced “since the beginning of the year” against people linked to the Olympics. “Hundreds of home visits” have taken place, he added.
Reaffirming that there had been no “specific threat” of an attack, nor detection of a plan for an “organized attack”, the minister noted that the police “handed over to justice individuals who we believe could have committed the act”. In the Île-de-France region around the Olympic sites, 35,000 police officers and gendarmes, 18,000 soldiers from Operation Sentinelle and several thousand private security agents are mobilized on average per day. There were 45,000 members of the police force for the opening ceremony alone on July 26 in Paris.
“The risk of action is real”
Because these Olympic Games are taking place in a tense geopolitical context. Gérald Darmanin called on Friday for the “immediate reinforcement” of the security of the Jewish community in France, fearing “an act of violence” after Hamas, whose leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed on Wednesday in Tehran in a strike attributed to Israel, declared a “day of anger”. “The risk of an act of violence is real, especially since many Israeli nationals are present on national soil because of the Olympic Games,” wrote the Minister of the Interior in a telegram addressed to the prefects and consulted by AFP.
Gérald Darmanin is calling for the “immediate mobilisation” of police and gendarmes as well as the military of the Sentinelle force “to guarantee the static protection of places frequented by our Jewish compatriots in the coming days, particularly during religious services.” The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs also called on Friday on French citizens passing through “who are still in Iran” to leave the country “as soon as possible”, due to the “increased” risk of military escalation between Israel and Tehran.
For his part, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal welcomed on Wednesday that the first week of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was a “real success on all levels”, whether in terms of sporting, organisational or security aspects.
“No major incidents”
The head of government, who has resigned but is in charge of current affairs, also highlighted “the remarkable commitment of our law enforcement forces”, noting that “no major or notable incident is to be deplored” and that “30,000 police officers and gendarmes” as well as “10,000 soldiers” are still mobilized daily in Paris. “68 cyberattacks” targeting the organization of the Olympic Games “have been detected and thwarted” since the start of the event, including two directly targeting Olympic sites, those of Bercy and La Villette, on July 25, Gabriel Attal also indicated to the press.
“The Games are far from over, many challenges still await us,” he warned, referring to the competitions that continue until August 11, the closing ceremony scheduled for that day, then the Paralympic Games in late August-early September. “This is not the time to let up the pressure,” he insisted. “We will not let our guard down for a single second, whatever the institutional or political situation.”