A £350 million security operation is underway in Paris ahead of the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games amid threats from terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
France’s largest peacetime deployment of forces in history was being finalised on Thursday, a day before festivities kick off on the River Seine.
Footage from the last 24 hours does not do justice to what is actually underway in the heart of the city.
A no-fly-zone has been declared across Greater Paris for any other aircraft. Mobile weapons systems that are in place include 12 Crotale New Generation short-range air defence missile units.
Developed in France, the Crotale NG system is specifically designed to guard sites from airborne threats.
Missiles have a range of around seven miles, and can travel at Mach 3.5, which is three-and-a-half times the speed of sound.
Commanders at Avord, France’s second biggest Airforce base, south of Paris, will coordinate the so-called ‘air protection bubble’.
It will also include four Airborne Warning & Control System aircraft focused on air policing.
There are up to 75,000 police, soldiers and hired guards on patrol in the capital at any one time, including SAS-style units, focused on terrorist threats.
All are ready to protect athletes as they progress down the River Seine on Friday evening, in front of some 350,000 spectators.
The elite GIGN, the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, is also on standby, providing everything from rooftop snipers to helicopter-borne rapid intervention teams.
Early on Thursday morning, teams of divers could be seen sweeping the Seine for explosives, while drones and a police surveillance helicopter whirred above them.
De-mining teams including sniffer dogs were also spotted searching the quays of the Seine, and nearby streets.
‘We are focused and we are ready,’ said General Lionel Catar, one of the military planners at the Olympics.
Catar was echoing a similar statement from French president Emmanuel Macron.
A week ahead of the event, metro stations were shut. Barriers were erected along the banks of the Seine, closing off Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, along other major landmarks.
This all comes hand in hand with an elaborate mapping system of a ‘red zone’ and a ‘grey zone’, which required QR codes to allow entry.
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