French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with BFM TV and RMC radio on Monday, the 15th of April, that France has backup plans in place in case of security concerns over the organisation of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in the River Seine on the 26th of July, with conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and the threat of terrorist attacks, prompting the French government to step up security measures, reports Reuters.
Macron expressed confidence that the planned Olympics ceremony, with a huge crowd around the Seine where some 160 boats will make the six-kilometre journey, would be a success, but he added that France was not naive.
“If we believe there are security risks, we will have a plan B and even a plan C,” he said.
One option, he said, would be to limit the ceremony to Paris’s central Trocadero square, opposite the Eiffel Tower. Another option would be to move the event indoors at the Stade de France.
Meanwhile, following the Iranian attack, Macron called on Israel to avoid further escalation in the Middle East, urging Israel to seek to isolate Iran rather than escalate the situation.
Macron said he would seek to achieve a ceasefire during the upcoming Summer Olympics, in line with the long-standing aim of the Olympics to promote peace through sport, adding that he wanted
to see a ceasefire in the Middle East as well as in Ukraine and Sudan.
“In a few weeks the Chinese President will visit Paris, I will ask him to help (to achieve an Olympic truce),” Macron was quoted as saying.
Macron, who gave the interview from the Grand Palais Museum in Paris, which has just been renovated to accommodate fencing and taekwondo competitions, said he had not changed his mind about swimming in the Seine.
Efforts to restore the Seine so that swimming could take place there, as at the 1900 Paris Olympics, were hampered last summer by sewage problems which led to the cancellation of a pre-Olympics swimming event.
Also read: US will not participate in Israeli retaliation against Iran
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