If the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, scheduled for the Seine in Paris on July 26, promises to be a headache in terms of security, the Olympic torch relay is not expected, either. more, completely restful. No less than 65 stopover towns and 100 emblematic sites will be visited, more than 400 towns crossed, and this for almost three months, from May 8 to July 26. For this long parade, the State will mobilize security resources which will cost 1 million euros, said the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on Monday January 22, while providing some details on the system.
The Olympic flame will thus be protected by 100 police officers and gendarmes in a security “bubble” during its journey from Marseille to Paris, via the overseas territories. “A hundred police officers and gendarmes will accompany” the flame throughout this journey, including the GIGN, the elite gendarme unit, which will be “nearby” “all the time,” the minister specified. Within this “bubble”, “eighteen police officers and gendarmes in plain clothes” will ensure “close protection” of the torchbearer.
Thirteen negative opinions on torchbearers
A mobile force unit, around 100 agents, placed at the front and rear of the convoy, will also be responsible for fighting “all forms of public disorder”, said the minister, citing possible “sit- in.”
The main risk of disruption comes from “ultra-left environmentalist” collectives, according to Mr. Darmanin, who cited “Saccage 2024”, “Last Renovation” and “The Uprisings of the Earth”. “At this stage, there are no intentions from the ultra-right,” he added.
For the arrival of the flame in Marseille, where 150,000 people are expected, 5,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized. In Paris, there will be 1,600 on July 14 and 15, then on July 26.
Furthermore, the security measures also concern the torchbearers and the torchbearers themselves: 12,000 identities were thus the subject of an administrative investigation, specified Mr. Darmanin. This resulted in thirteen negative opinions, ten for facts of a judicial nature and three on the advice of the intelligence services.
