Now less than two years from the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, preparation for the event is well underway. The new head of the Paris police headquarters, Laurent Nuñez provided some details, in an interview granted to AFP, Friday August 5, on securing the event.
Regarding the opening ceremony – a large naval parade on the Seine – which constitutes an enormous challenge in terms of security, Laurent Nuñez is not shy: “The ceremony will take place, that’s clear”. He recognizes that there is “still discussions on the gauge” spectators who will attend this event from the banks of the Seine.
Originally, the organizers were counting on 600,000 spectators, but several voices were raised to recommend, like the Court of Auditors in a preliminary report, the reduction of the format. Laurent Nuñez’s predecessor, Didier Lallement, had also expressed his reluctance.
When he was objected to the fiasco of the Stade de France during the Champions League final at the end of May, the prefect of police was confident in the ability of the Paris police headquarters to secure the Olympics. “We have already organized a lot of events that have gone well”he assures. “In event management and public order, we are a country that sets the benchmark in the world.”
“From the start of the school year”Laurent Nuñez will organize a “much finer steering” of the mission set up to ensure the follow-up of all the themes surrounding the preparation of the Games: public transport, traffic, civil security, securing the sites… To do this, it “will himself chair the meetings with the directors concerned”.
He finally raises with satisfaction “a clarification of the governance of securing the Olympic Games”. President Emmanuel Macron has specified that“it came under the Minister of the Interior and, for the Paris plate, the Paris police prefect under the authority of the minister”.