development work for the opening ceremony on the Seine will begin on June 17

Traffic will be prohibited in the red zone from July 18, eight days before the parade on the Paris river.

Work as late as possible to limit inconvenience. The development of the banks of the Seine for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 26 will begin on Monday June 17. The announcement was made Thursday April 25 during a press conference bringing together Laurent Nuñez, Prefect of Police, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, Marc Guillaume, Prefect of the Ile-de-France region and Paris, and Tony Estanguet , president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee.

The security work for this extraordinary ceremony, which is expected to bring together 326,000 spectators in total, will be increasingly extensive and restrictive for traffic. They will be characterized in particular by three types of intervention, ranging from simple work on the sidewalks, without particular traffic restrictions, to the total closure of the platforms as July 26 approaches.

“We wanted to do the editing as late as possible and compress it into a limited time”detailed Pierre Rabadan, deputy in charge of the Olympic and Paralympic Games at Paris town hall. A certain number of platforms will be kept open in the evenings and weekends, even during the work. The installation of artistic and security devices on the bridges will not begin until July 15.

Five bridges will remain open

A perimeter prohibiting motorized traffic (red perimeter), subject to exemption, will be put in place eight days before the opening ceremony, from July 18. An updated list of categories of people authorized to access it will be published on April 26, explains the police prefect. This red zone will be accompanied by an anti-terrorist perimeter which will contain the entire first row of buildings on the banks of the Seine.

“We wanted to include within the perimeter all the buildings which had a visual on the parade”, explains Laurent Nuñez. During this period, specific access will be set up to go to the various museums present in the area such as the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay or the Institute of the Arab World.

“We have a protection perimeter which will ultimately cut all of Paris in two for more than eight days.”

Laurent Nuñez, Paris police chief

during a press conference

To facilitate travel between the north and south of the capital, it will be possible to cross the area without stopping there thanks to five bridges which will remain in circulation: the Sully bridge, the Notre-Dame bridge, the Invalides bridge, the Senghor footbridge and the Iéna bridge. It will also be possible to cross the Seine upstream of the Austerlitz bridge and downstream of the Iéna bridge.

On July 26, the day of the opening ceremony, an expanded zone will be set up in the northwest of Paris to facilitate “the arrival of dignitaries, heads of state, governments and athletes”, specifies Laurent Nuñez. This red perimeter will, as in previous days, allow exemptions until 1 p.m., after which access will be completely prohibited. Only emergency vehicles, those used by the ceremony organizers and those of dignitaries will have the right to circulate in this area.