The Paris police bomb disposal group anticipate the Olympics to current them with a “considerable challenge” subsequent yr.
They have been working with Paris 2024 organisers to outline the best degree of bomb clearing intervention through the Olympics and Paralympics within the French capital subsequent summer time, the director of the central police laboratory mentioned on Monday.
“The Olympic Games are an absolutely considerable challenge,” Christophe Pezron mentioned of the July 26-Aug. 11 occasion.
“As far as bomb-disposal practice is concerned, there are two stages which are quite separate for us from the site inspection stages, since each of the Olympic Games sites will be inspected before being handed over to the organisers.”
“We carried out an inspection, a kind of rehearsal, at the Stade de France during the Rugby World Cup. So the first stage is these inspections of all the Olympic Games sites.
“And the second activity, which will be carried out in parallel, is that we imagine that, given the population that will be moving around during the Olympic Games, we’re likely to be faced with an increase in the number of abandoned parcels and suspicious packages. So, from that point on, we’ll certainly be seeing a great deal of intervention activity.”
On Monday, members of the bomb disposal squad had been alerted on the Montparnasse practice station to deserted baggage, which the group exploded.
Another bag, which was discovered to belong to a faculty pupil, was additionally exploded afterward Monday.
Bomb alerts in vacationer sights such because the Louvre museum and the Versailles palace have additionally elevated within the wake of the Hamas assault in Israel on Oct. 7.
France has been on excessive alert since elevating its safety threshold in October, when a Chechen-origin man with a knife killed a trainer in a faculty in northern France.
Last Saturday, one particular person died and two others had been injured after a person attacked vacationers in central Paris close to the Eiffel Tower.
The assault occurred on the Quai de Grenelle – a spot additionally included within the plans for the opening ceremony.
Asked if the federal government was mulling a change to its plan to carry the ceremony on the River Seine, with a number of hundred thousand spectators anticipated alongside its banks, amid the safety threats French sports activities minister Amelie Oudea-Castera mentioned there was no “Plan B”.
Some 160 boats will set off on July 26 from the Pont d’Austerlitz for a six-kilometre journey to the Pont d’Iena in an occasion Tony Estanguet, the top of the Games’ organising committee, described as “unique and spectacular.”
“We’ve been preparing for the Olympic Games for over 18 months now,” Pezron added. “For 18 months now, we’ve been in constant dialogue with Paris 2024, with our authorities, to define the right level of bomb-disposal intervention.
“So, any particular fears or stress? No. On the other hand, we’re working more and more to ensure that our organisation is as efficient as possible.”
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Reuters)
