President Emmanuel Macron says France is ready to host Paris Olympics

PARIS – President Emmanuel Macron said on July 22 that France is ready to host the Paris Olympics as he visited the Athletes’ Village four days before the Games begin.

“We are ready and we will be ready throughout the Games,” he said.

“We have been working on these Games for years now and we are at the start of a decisive week which on Friday will see the opening ceremony and then the Olympiad which will be held in Paris, 100 years since the last one.”

He added: “This is the fruit of an immense amount of work which has profoundly changed the country, in particular the area” of Seine-Saint-Denis where the Athletes’ Village is situated.

The message comes a day after Paris Olympics supremo Tony Estanguet expressed a similar sentiment while playing down complaints from some residents and businesses about the impact of the event.

“We are ready as we head into the final phase,” he told a press conference in Paris, five days from the opening ceremony on July 26.

“For as long as the closing ceremony hasn’t finished, we need to remain vigilant. But today we are exactly where we would have dreamed of being a few years ago.”

Finishing touches are being applied to the venues across the City of Light, and thousands of athletes and officials are pouring in, while the weather has brightened up after months of rain.

In a further boost for organisers, the water quality of the river Seine – which is set to be used for outdoor Olympic swimming events – has also improved dramatically since the start of July.

“All the indicators for the Seine are positive at this stage,” Estanguet added.

The river is set to host the opening ceremony, which will see 6,000 to 7,000 athletes sail down on 85 barges and boats.

It will be the first time the Summer Olympics have opened outside the main athletics stadium, with up to 300,000 ticketed spectators set to watch from stands and on the river banks and another 200,000 expected to watch from the overlooking apartments.

Around 4,000 tickets are still available for the ceremony, Estanguet said, adding: “We’ve always tried to maintain as high a level of ambition as possible so that these Games make France shine.”

The vast security operation for the opening ceremony is causing some friction, however.

Large parts of central Paris along the banks of the river and around Olympic venues are strictly off-limits for most people.

Trade groups representing Paris shops, restaurants, bars and clubs complained on July 19 that they were facing an “unprecedented slump in business and footfall”, blaming in part the “heavy security measures”.

“It was always a choice made in full conscience that the success of Paris 2024 would mean having the Games in the city. That was the completely unprecedented concept for Paris 2024,” Estanguet explained.

As well as the opening ceremony, much of the sport is set to take place at temporary venues around Paris, with beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower, archery at the Invalides and skateboarding at the Place de la Concorde.

“We can’t do it without some disruption. We can’t do it without some restrictions,” Estanguet said.

He thanked “those who have understood this because it’s really to honour our country in the most beautiful way”.

Around 45,000 members of the French security forces are set to be on duty on July 26 when the Olympics kick off at 7.30pm.

“Security was the No. 1 priority for Paris 2024,” Estanguet said.

Cybersecurity is also a major concern, with a global IT outage on July 19 after an update to CrowdStrike software causing temporary disruption to the accreditation system for the Games.

The International Olympic Committee has said it is bracing itself for disinformation attacks targeting the Paris Games following recent incidents blamed on Russia, in response to a near-ban on Russian athletes because of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

IOC president Thomas Bach visited the Athletes’ Village to the north of the French capital, which will house up to 14,500 competitors and officials at the peak of the Games.

Comprising 40 different low-rise housing blocks, the complex has been built by employing innovative construction techniques using low-carbon concrete, water recycling and reclaimed building materials.

Meanwhile, France’s foreign minister said Israeli athletes were welcome at the Paris Games after a hard-left member of the French parliament sparked outrage by urging them to stay away because of the conflict in Gaza.

“The Israeli delegation is welcome in France,” Stephane Sejourne said in Brussels ahead of talks with his Israeli counterpart, adding that the call by France Unbowed lawmaker Thomas Portes for the country’s exclusion had been “irresponsible and dangerous”.

“We will ensure the security of the delegation,” Sejourne added.

Portes drew an angry response from French Jewish groups and both political opponents and allies.

Yonathan Arfi, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, said the comments were “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.

Arfi said Israeli athletes were “already the most in danger at the Olympic Games”, recalling the 11 “murdered by Palestinian terrorists” at the 1972 Munich Games. AFP