MUMBAI – The war between Israel and militant group Hamas will not affect the security plans for 2024 Olympics, the chief of the Paris Games organising committee said on Monday.

There have been protests linked to the Middle East conflict recently, with France being home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities. It was put on its highest security alert on Friday after a teacher was killed in an Islamist attack.

French President Emmanuel Macron ordered the deployment of up to 7,000 soldiers for increased security patrols, as bomb alerts forced the evacuation of the Louvre Museum and Palace of Versailles.

Security at the Belgian border was also stepped up on Tuesday after a shooting incident in Brussels before a Euro 2024 qualifier between Belgium and Sweden a day earlier.

Belgian police on Tuesday shot dead a 45-year-old Tunisian who was suspected of killing two Swedes heading to the match, which was abandoned at half-time.

Macron on Tuesday denounced hostage-taking as an “ignominy” after Hamas aired a video of a Franco-Israeli woman it kidnapped.

The Elysee presidential palace said Macron “calls for her immediate and unconditional release”, adding: “France is fully mobilised and is working with its partners to free French hostages held by Hamas”.

“We will not change our plans with what is happening at the moment because since the beginning we are at the best level in terms of security with Paris 2024,” said Tony Estanguet, the president of the organising committee for the July 26-Aug 11 Games.

“We anticipated a lot what we need. From the year 2020, we know very carefully how many people we need venue by venue, day by day and we continue to work with the public authorities to guarantee the security.

“So again, I’m very confident because there is a strong commitment coming from our partners to guarantee the security.”

French police used tear gas and water cannon to break up a banned rally in support of Palestinian people in Paris recently, as Mr Macron urged the French to remain united and refrain from bringing the Israel-Hamas conflict home.

The country has been targeted by a series of terrorist attacks over the years, the worst being a simultaneous assault by gunmen and suicide bombers on entertainment venues and cafes in Paris in November 2015.

For the 2024 Olympics, France will deploy some 35,000 security agents and the military to secure the opening ceremony alone, a river parade through the heart of Paris, from threats including drone strikes.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected to line the Seine river along the 6km route to watch the delegations sail in a flotilla of boats, from the Austerlitz Bridge to the foot of the Eiffel Tower, in the first Olympic opening ceremony of this size staged outside a stadium.

“From the beginning of the journey, security is really a part of the project,” Estanguet said after a Paris 2024 presentation at the International Olympic Committee meeting in Mumbai.

“We had a terrorist attack in 2015 and it was in the middle of the beginning of this project. So from the beginning, I think the public authorities with Paris 2024 set security as the No. 1 priority in the success of the Games.”

Los Angeles 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman on Monday said he hoped the Olympics could be a “beacon of light and hope” for the world, as he lamented the conflict in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

Wasserman, citing the deaths of 11 Israelis killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Games, added: “Unfortunately, the Olympics are not immune to the world we live in.

“At its worst, it is a platform for hate to express itself on the stage and we will always remember the 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team who were taken hostage and murdered in Munich.

“But at its best, it is an opportunity for sport to show the world a better path with peace and unity, and we will always remember the triumph of Jesse Owens in the face of unspeakable evil,” he said.

Owens, an African-American track and field athlete, won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, when Germany was under the Nazi regime. REUTERS, AFP