Tony Estanguet, the president of the organizing committee for the Paris Olympics, has ruled out any place other than the Seine for the organization of the opening ceremony. Statements that go against the “ alternatives » mentioned in December by the President of the Republic.
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The president of the Paris Olympic organizing committee, Tony Estanguet, assured on January 10 that his teams were not working on locations other than the Seine for the opening ceremony, scheduled for July 26. A hypothesis born after Emmanuel Macron’s exit last month on the existence of other places as potential alternatives. “ Today, with Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the ceremonies, we are working on an opening ceremony on the Seine. The teams do not work at another location », Said Tony Estanguet on France Inter.
On December 20, the President of the Republic assured on France 5 that there were alternatives for the organization of the opening ceremony which would take place “ in case of potential threat “, For example ” a rise in international or regional tensions ” Or ” a series of attacks » as in November 2015.
A hypothesis also supported on January 7 on RTL by the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra: “ If we ever find ourselves in an extreme scenario, with repeated terrorist attacks on our soil, obviously we must have an alternative. The French expect it from us “. Asked about the possibility that the ceremony would not be held on the Parisian river, she affirmed the need for a “ alternative to the Seine “.
Despite his declarations, Tony Estanguet nevertheless considered that the head of state was right to recall that the ceremony would be held with “ a whole series of adaptation measures depending on a security risk, but also a meteorological risk or technological incident, cyberattacks “.
Anne Hidalgo promises a “ historic dive » in the Seine
A sign of the importance of the Seine for these 2024 Olympic Games, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo also announced on January 10 that she will swim there in July just before the Olympic Games and a year before the opening of swimming pools. swimming in the river.
“ We will swim in the Seine “, she said during her greetings at the Town Hall, inviting the regional prefect Marc Guillaume to accompany her in this “historic dive ”, more than “30 years after Jacques Chirac’s promise “. In 1990, Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, promised to “bathe in the Seine in front of witnesses » in 1993, but the former French president (1995-2007) never kept his commitment.
“Everyone said it was impossible, we did it », welcomed Anne Hidalgo, who announced in July 2023 the opening for the summer of 2025 of three swimming sites for the general public in the capital. The announcement was made from one of these sites during a dive by his deputies for town planning Emmanuel Grégoire and for sport Pierre Rabadan, without the socialist mayor taking the plunge.
Since 2016, the State and local authorities in Ile-de-France have invested around 1.4 billion euros to make swimming possible in the Seine and the Marne, its main tributary. But the organizers of the Paris Olympics faced serious disappointments last summer during tests. Before the cancellation of the two triathlon events (para and mixed), it was the open water swimming events that had to be canceled due to pollution caused by an unusual summer rain episode.
(With AFP)