“We’re leading 4-0 at half-time, but there’s still a second half to play, so we’ll stay focused until the final whistle.” To sum up his state of mind as the Paralympic Games approach, Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez used a football metaphor during his press conference on Friday, August 23. Three days earlier, the resigning Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, had used the same formula.
For this second chapter which opens on Wednesday August 28, “It is in every way the same system as for the Olympic Games [JO]with slightly fewer staff involved”, Laurent Nuñez summarized. The Paralympic Games last less time than the Olympic Games, twelve days compared to seventeen, welcome fewer spectators – 4 million people expected compared to 12 million –, and are held on nineteen sites – compared to forty-one – located only in Ile-de-France and Châteauroux. On a daily basis, 25,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized on average, compared to 45,000 for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Usually, during the summer period, only 60% of the police force is present, the rest being on vacation. It was therefore necessary to restrict the taking of vacation days, to reach 100% presence during the Olympic Games, and 80% for the Paralympic Games.
In addition to the internal security forces, 8,000 soldiers from Operation Sentinelle and 10,000 private security agents will have to be added. The intervention units – the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) and RAID – must also renew the system already deployed during the Olympic Games, by mobilizing 300 agents.
Twelve torch relays
Some personnel have, in fact, already been mobilized since August 25, with the arrival of the Paralympic flame in France. Unlike the Olympic Games, it is not one but twelve relays in parallel that transport it through some fifty cities in the country, in the regions on August 25 and 26, and in Ile-de-France on the 27 and 28. Departing from Calais (Pas-de-Calais), the main relay will benefit from reinforced security, and will be supervised by police officers and gendarmes on foot. The protective bubble thus formed will be reinforced by an anti-drone system, motorcyclists, a mobile force unit and GIGN gendarmes.
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In Paris, the security peak will be reached on the evening of August 28 with the opening ceremony. As for the Olympic Games, this sequence will not take place in a stadium, but in the city. The 4,400 athletes expected will parade on the lower part of the Champs-Elysées, before reaching the Place de la Concorde. To accommodate the public, in addition to the stands already installed on the square for the Olympic Games, four others will be added on the avenue: up to 50,000 spectators are expected. Fifteen thousand police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized, in particular to enforce the various restricted traffic perimeters, which will come into force that very morning.
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