France is “able” of securing the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics on the Seine, considers the interministerial delegate for major sporting events and the Olympics, Michel Cadot. He was heard Thursday in the Senate by the Law and Culture Committees on the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France at the end of May. He pleaded for the adoption of a crowd movement detection system.
Michel Cadot, who acknowledges having a share of responsibility in this failure at the Stade de France, would like a artificial intelligence system for detecting crowd movements is integrated into the future orientation and programming law of the Ministry of the Interior.
Asked about the feasibility of the unprecedented opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2024, on the Seine, which arouses fears in the police community, Michel Cadot explained: “We are able to do this but we need a precisely planned device, whether on the strictly nautical risks and on the risks of access, controls, fluidity, circulation, number of entry points to avoid congestion“, he said, repeating that it was “objectively of a considerable logistical and organizational challenge“.
The English example
Working groups (town hall, police headquarters, and Ile-de-France prefecture) must “restore a waypoint“with a view to “validation at the end of August-beginning of September” and “to have it approved by the end of 2022”, he said.
“See what’s been happening in England recently on the edge of the Thames for jubilees and ceremonies with extremely large crowds“, he added to mean that a gigantic gathering at the edge of a river could go well.