The opening ceremony could collapse – Macron has a plan B

The Summer Olympics will begin in Paris in a hundred days. A highly symbolic act took place on Tuesday: Greek actress Mary Mina lit the Olympic flame in the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia. Her compatriot Stefanos Ntouskos, the 2021 Olympic rowing champion, took over the flame as the first torch runner. The flame will now be carried through Greece for eleven days before the three-master “Belem” takes it on board. The Olympic flame is scheduled to arrive in Marseille on May 8th.

The flame could not be ignited in a still using the sun’s rays as usual because the sky was overcast. Olympic organizers hope this isn’t a bad omen. As French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with the television station BFM TV on Monday, his country is prepared for all eventualities.

This particularly applies to the opening ceremony. It should be particularly pompous. The plan is for the national sports delegations to sail in 94 ships on the Seine past hundreds of thousands of spectators, from the Pont d’Austerlitz near the Bastille to the Eiffel Tower. “This is a world first,” said Macron. And emphasized his willingness to hold the event on a large scale.

Huge security zone along the Seine

The highest terror alert level currently applies in France. “The terrorists want to stop us from dreaming, that would be their greatest victory,” said Macron. The secret services and the police would do everything to protect the celebration. There is a safety zone along the river. Driving is prohibited here and spectators and residents can only enter with a QR code. This security zone, which will be installed a week before the opening ceremony, also includes the Field of Mars, the Louvre and the Tuileries.

15 metro stations remain closed. 30,000 police officers and 20,000 private security guards will be deployed. Nevertheless, in the event of terrorist threats, there is also a Plan B and a Plan C, which, according to Macron, are being prepared in parallel. The opening ceremony could be limited to the Trocadéro, the facility opposite the Eiffel Tower on the other side of the Seine – or, in the worst case, even only take place at the Stade de France.

The Seine is not only in focus because of the opening ceremony. One of the promises of the Summer Games organizers was to improve the water quality in the river so much that it would be safe to swim in again. And that the open water swimming competitions and the swimming part of the triathlon can take place in the Seine. The state has invested around one billion euros in this venture.

But it is more than questionable whether the water will be clean enough in summer. Last week, an NGO published a study showing that the concentration of fecal bacteria in the Seine is still far too high. The Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha, Olympic champion in the 10 kilometer free swimming in Tokyo, had already made it clear that she had no great desire to jump into the river – and demanded that the organizers examine alternatives.

But Emmanuel Macron is not deterred by this. He said in a TV interview that he would keep the promise he made at the end of February and jump into the Seine. The president assured that the river would be ready in time for the games. “The fact that you can swim in the Seine and also in the Marne – that will be one of the great legacies of these Games.”

Macron also spoke about the geopolitical situation that casts a shadow over the major sporting event – including the threatened escalation of the conflict in the Middle East following the Iranian drone attack on Israel. The president said he wanted to do everything he could to achieve an “Olympic ceasefire.” And by that he meant both the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine. Macron wants to discuss the peace offensive with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will visit France in a few weeks.

Don’t treat Israel like Russia

Macron firmly rejects calls to exclude Israel from the games as well as Russia because of the attacks in Gaza. These are two completely different cases. Russia has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for more than two years, while Israel fell victim to a terrorist attack on October 7th.

In addition, Macron denied that he wanted to be one of the runners who will carry the Olympic flame as they make their way through France. He expressed his hope that Kylian Mbappé’s future club would let the French football superstar play in the Olympic tournament – whether it be PSG or Real Madrid. And he confirmed that Aya Nakamura will sing at the opening ceremony.

The R&B artist, born in Mali and raised in a Parisian banlieue, is the most listened to Francophone singer. But for the extreme right she is not French enough; someone like her has no place in the opening ceremony. These racist reactions shocked him, said Macron.