By SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — A massive security operation has been deployed Friday in Paris to keep the opening ceremony of the Olympics safe.
The capital’s streets are blocked off, squadrons of police are on patrol and imposing metal-fence security barriers have been erected like an iron curtain on both sides of the River Seine. Up to 45,000 police and gendarmes as well as 10,000 soldiers have been deployed for Olympic security.
Here’s a look at what’s happened with security so far:
French rail network sabotaged
Widespread and “criminal” acts of vandalism including arson attacks hit France’s high-speed rail network Friday. The acts delayed or halted travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe for hundreds of thousands of people, including some Olympic athletes heading to the opening ceremony.
Three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est. French officials condemned the attacks as “criminal actions.”
Prosecutors opened a national investigation into the crimes — among them property damage threatening the nation’s “fundamental interests” — that could carry sentences of 10 to 20 years.
Brazil soccer legend robbed
Paris prosecutors said Friday that they opened an investigation after Brazilian soccer great Zico reported a robbery.
Zico, a member of the Brazilian delegation attending the Olympics, said “a bag containing valuables had been stolen from his vehicle, which had a window open, in the 19th district of Paris,” according to prosecutors’ statement.
Last security meeting before the ceremony
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin held a security meeting Friday afternoon with various government and police officials, just a few hours before the opening ceremony.
Darmanin said “all security measures are implemented, and everything is positive,” praising the work of police officers, fire brigades and bomb disposal experts who have been deployed.
“We don’t have any specific problem to report for the moment,” Darmanin added.
All Parisian bridges were closed to both vehicles and pedestrians as a vast anti-terrorism perimeter along the banks of the river sealed off a kilometers-long (miles-long) area to those without tickets for the ceremony.
Thwarting plots against the Olympics
French authorities have foiled several plots to disrupt the 2024 Olympics, including arresting a Russian man, just days before the Games officially kick off.
France has been on high alert over the past few weeks as preparations to host the Olympics hit the final stretch.
The city has repeatedly suffered deadly extremist attacks and international tensions are high because of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Paris prosecutors said this week that they had arrested a 40-year-old Russian man at his Paris apartment on suspicion of planning to “destabilize the Olympic Games.”
Blocking suspects from the Games
France’s interior minister said about 1,000 people suspected of possibly meddling for a foreign power have been blocked from attending the Olympics.
About 1 million background checks have scrutinized Olympic volunteers, workers and others involved in the Games as well as those applying for passes to enter the most tightly controlled security zone in Paris — along the banks of the Seine — ahead of the opening ceremony.
The checks blocked about 5,000 people from attending, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. Out of them, about 1,000 people were suspected of foreign interference — or spying, he said.
AP journalists Thomas Adamson and Catherine Gaschka contributed.
