Europe 1 with AFP 17:48 p.m., October 24, 2023

With eight months to go until the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, questions remain about the security of the event. The recent events in Brussels, Arras and also in Israel have only reinforced concerns, but the head of the Paris Olympic Games organising committee, Tony Estanguet, wanted to make a reassuring speech by evoking an "unprecedented system".

More than two weeks after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the head of the Paris Olympics organizing committee Tony Estanguet assured on Tuesday that security conditions will be "there" for athletes and spectators in nine months' time. Asked about the impact that such a conflict could have, combined with a terrorist threat noted in France after the Arras attack and the Brussels attack, Tony Estanguet recalled that the Paris-2024 project had been launched "in the aftermath of the 2015 attacks".

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"An unprecedented system"

"This extremely tense context, with threats, has been present somewhere since the beginning of this adventure," he said on the sidelines of the presentation of the para-marathon. "This is an unprecedented system that has been put in place by the State to secure the organisation of the Games," he said. "Since the first day of this project, from the application phase, all the decisions that have been taken have been taken taking into account a maximum risk to safety."

"What is happening today, the international and national context, is obviously taken into account. But somehow, it has been since the beginning of the project, even if we have to continue to adjust the system until the end. But we are moving forward, whether on the ceremonies or on the competitions, with ambition," he explained.

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Fears surrounding the Opening Ceremony

The government on Friday addressed the security issues of the Paris Olympics during an inter-ministerial committee meeting in Matignon. The war, sparked by an unprecedented attack by Hamas terrorists in Israel on October 7, has raised new security fears, particularly around the opening ceremony on the Seine River, for the first time in history outside a stadium.

"The organisation of an opening ceremony on the Seine in the heart of Paris includes security conditions that will be there," said Tony Estanguet on Tuesday. "We are adjusting all the measures with the State and that's why the gauges, especially on the high platforms, have not yet been completely stopped," he added.