Seven weeks before the Paris Olympics (July 26-August 11), several scenarios for the opening ceremony, planned on the Seine, are still on the table. Objective ? Prepare for any eventuality. Thus, the authorities are working on a “plan B”, excluding the Stade de France, assure Wednesday June 12 several sources with knowledge of the negotiations cited by AFP.
“The idea is to pick up the athletes at the Olympic village in Saint-Denis and take them by bus to the foot of the Eiffel Tower,” explains a senior official on condition of anonymity. Once arrived, the athletes could then parade on the Pont d’Iéna which connects the Parisian monument to the Trocadéro, before returning to the village. All without an audience. Exit the 100,000 paid seats planned on the lower quays of the Seine, and the 220,000 spectators invited to follow the ceremony as planned in plan A.
“It’s a scenario that maintains a semblance of a ceremony, but the probability of it happening is slim. Basically if there is an attack between now and then, or a precise and targeted threat to the opening ceremony , and in this case it is very likely that everything will be canceled, including the Olympics,” specifies the security source.
The objective with this plan B is above all to reassure the public in the event of an unforeseen event. On April 8, 2024, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin had indicated to the Parisian that to date “we have no clear terrorist threat to the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. So there is no question of calling this organization into question.”
Fuzzy answers
But faced with concerns linked to international tensions, requests for a fallback solution have been made repeatedly for months by numerous political figures. And these have not always been very clear. If Emmanuel Macron had ensured from December 2023, then of an interview on the set of C à vousthat there were alternative plans, the boss of the Organizing Committee (Cojo) Tony Estanguet had caused trouble by saying a month later that there were “no plans B”, that his teams would not only worked on the hypothesis of a ceremony on the Seine.
On April 15, Emmanuel Macron tried to clarify the situation by specifically mentioning the existence of “plan B, even plan C”, for the opening ceremony in the event of a terrorist threat. That day, the President of the Republic spoke of the possibility of an encore ceremony “limited to the Trocadéro”, or of a withdrawal to the Stade de France, “because that is what is classically done”, had -he says. The second hypothesis has since been abandoned. “It was not already possible because there is a rugby sevens match planned for that day at the SDF,” assured a security source.
The confirmation of a plan B by the Head of State had at the time made the mayor of Paris jump: “I am working on a plan A, I only know plan A”, she said on Tuesday April 16 . “You have to have confidence in the work that is being done. There are exceptional teams of professionals, with Laurent Nuñez and those who work on Olympic security.”