After the Crocus tragedy, the French authorities became concerned about the terrorist threat to the Paris Olympics

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin met with intelligence services to assess the terrorist threat to the country after the terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall concert hall, for which the Islamic State (ISIS, a terrorist organization banned in Russia), claimed responsibility. raised new concerns about the safety of the Paris Olympics.

One of the most serious security challenges facing the organizers of the Games in the French capital is the security of the opening ceremony on July 26, The Guardian states.

It is planned to be an unprecedented open-air extravaganza, which for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games will take place not within the confines of a stadium, but with a flotilla of 94 boats carrying thousands of flailing athletes along a 6-kilometer stretch of the Seine, followed by another 80 boats. carrying media and security forces, while an estimated 222,000 people will gather along the riverbank and another 200,000 will watch from buildings.

It is expected that more than 45,000 police will be deployed to protect the action, with snipers on rooftops and elite officers on boats. Airspace will be closed in a 150km radius around Paris during the ceremony as security services prepare for the potential threat of drone attacks.

Interior Minister Darmanin promised that French police and intelligence services would be prepared for an emergency security operation and said that while the Games were an obvious future target for attacks, huge efforts and resources had been devoted to large-scale security and intelligence operations.

“France, because we defend universal values ​​and stand for secularism, is under particular threat, especially during extraordinary events like the Olympic Games,” Darmanin told reporters this week after the Crocus City Hall attack raised questions about a potential threat from abroad. “The French police, gendarmes, prefects, intelligence services will be ready,” added the head of the French Interior Ministry, saying that “we have a very effective intelligence system. We stop plot development almost every month.”

A poll carried out by Elabe for BFMTV this week found that while 80% of French people are concerned about terrorism, 59% are optimistic that France will successfully secure the Games. A total of 57% of French people believe that the opening ceremony of the Olympics should be held outdoors.

French security services are screening up to a million people ahead of the Games, including athletes, staff, volunteers and people living near key infrastructure, according to the interior ministry.

Following the March 22 Moscow attack that killed at least 140 people, Paris raised its terror threat level to its highest level – the country has been the target of frequent jihadist attacks in the past, including coordinated attacks by the outlawed Islamic State group in Paris on a concert hall.” Bataclan”, restaurants and national sports stadium in November 2015.

Emmanuel Macron said this week that the Islamic State affiliate believed to be behind the Moscow attack, known as Wilayat Khorasan, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was also seeking to attack France. “This particular group has attempted several attacks on our own soil,” the President of the Fifth Republic told reporters. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said two planned terrorist attacks had been foiled in France since the beginning of the year.

Earlier this month, Interior Minister Darmanin told a Senate committee that the type of risk assessed during the Olympics included the possibility of a lone attacker inside France or groups outside France paying criminals inside the country to organize an attack. He said there was no specific threat from a foreign group. “Today we can say that groups such as Al-Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) or the Islamic State (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) intend to attack the West and France in particular, but at the moment they have no money”. But, he added, intelligence is not an “exact science.”

Celine Berton, France’s head of domestic intelligence, told the same Senate committee that the risk of terrorism has been growing for more than a year. She spoke of “the return of the threat of Islamist terrorism associated with external theaters of war, which we must not lose sight of in a tense geopolitical context with terrorist organizations that are targeting the West and will no doubt seize the opportunity that is Games”.

There is also the potential for cyber-attacks during the Games, whether from hackers targeting stopwatches during planned events or wider computer systems or transport infrastructure.

The head of France’s national cybersecurity agency told AFP this week that the Paris Olympics will be targeted, including by foreign countries “who want to disrupt the Games because they are unhappy for one reason or another and who may try to disrupt the ceremony opening or causing problems for the public.” transport”.

The warning from Vincent Strubel, director general of the French cybersecurity agency (ANSSI), comes amid tense diplomatic relations between France and Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

Strubel told AFP: “Obviously the Olympics will be a target. We prepare for all types of attacks—everything we face every day, but larger, more numerous, and more frequent.”