Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Florian Hulleu / Paris 2024 / AFP 17:05 pm, May 23, 2023
"Several hundred thousand" spectators will attend the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games for free, Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday, while the figure of 400,000 has been circulating for a few months. The ceremony on the Seine will start at 20:24, on July 26, 2024, and will last "three hours".How many spectators will be able to see the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine on July 26, 2024 for free? "Several hundred thousand," French Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday, without wanting to be more precise, while the figure of 400,000, down, has been circulating for months. 14 months before this unprecedented open-air ceremony, the event wanted by both French President Emmanuel Macron and the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo remains "an artistic and organizational challenge", according to Anne Hidalgo.
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The free show on the high docks
On six kilometers of the river, 115 boats will sail, with the delegations of athletes, from the bridge of Austerliz to the bridge of Jena, in the presence of heads of state and government from around the world. A first for the Olympics, but also an event that gives cold sweats to police officials. On the low quays, as close as possible to the water, 100,000 places are put on sale between 90 and 2,700 euros by the organizing committee (Cojo). On the high docks, the show will be free.
Questioned Tuesday during the signing in Paris of the security protocol on the ceremony, the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, repeated the figure of 600,000 for the global gauge announced a few months ago. But, revived on the share of free spectators, he replied twice "several hundred thousand people". Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had recently assured that a figure "around 400,000" would soon be announced. She had also insisted on these free spectators while a controversy has swelled since this winter on the prices considered prohibitive tickets.
"The gauge is being refined"
The Senate Olympics Monitoring Mission also mentions the figure of "400,000 spectators who will be able to attend the ceremony free of charge from the high docks" in the minutes of a progress report published this week. Several months ago, the president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, who began a showdown with the State over transport, had officially requested a lowering of this gauge, fearing that public transport could not absorb the crowd.
Since then, both the president of the Cojo, Tony Estanguet, the Minister of Sports or elected officials repeated in chorus: "the gauge is being refined". Behind the scenes, discussions are tough between, on the one hand, the mayor of Paris and the Cojo eager for a great popular festival where onlookers roam freely, and on the other the prefecture of police who wants to manage pockets of spectators by sectors. The platforms will be divided into 15 or 20 sections, police and political sources told AFP. This organization was not detailed Tuesday.
€200 million total costs for the Ministry of the Interior
Gérald Darmanin did not specify the cost of securing the opening ceremony but assured that in total, for the Ministry of the Interior, the cost of security for the Olympics represented "200 million euros". A "first figure" of a pre-report of the Court of Auditors in the summer of 2022 evoked "419 million euros" for the security expenses of the State (in the broad sense). On the other hand, he announced that the Ministry of the Interior would manage and "finance" the mandatory registration platform to access these high platforms.
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The ceremony will start at 20:24, July 26, 2024, and will last "three hours", said Gérald Darmanin alongside Tony Estanguet, with a "river parade", "an artistic show" and a protocol ceremony. There will be about "thirty boats" dedicated to security, said Gérald Darmanin, as well as staff of the Ministry of the Interior on the boats of the delegations. On the artistic aspect, the secret is also well kept.
The latest version was recently presented to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). But the information circulates in a very limited "loop" of people, AFP recently learned from sports sources, including the French president, Anne Hidalgo and Tony Estanguet. "We are going to make billions of people dream," says the three-time Olympic canoe champion, an eternal enthusiast who also promises a good television audience.