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Paris Attack
French authorities have foiled several plots to disrupt the 2024 Olympics, including arresting a Russian man in one of them, officials said Wednesday, just days before the opening ceremony of the Summer Games in Paris. France has been on high alert over the past few weeks as preparations to host the Olympics hit the final stretch. The Games officially kick off with a lavish and high-security opening ceremony on the River Seine on Friday. Paris prosecutors said Wednesday that they had arrested a 40-year-old Russian man Tuesday at his Paris apartment on suspicion of planning to destabilize the Olympic Games. He was charged with conducting intelligence work on behest of a foreign power aiming to provoke hostilities in France, crimes punishable with a 30-year sentence in France, according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor's office. During an official search of the suspect's home in Paris, police agents found items that raised fears of his intention to organize events likely to l
A year ago, the head of the Paris Olympics boldly declared that France's capital would be "the safest place in the world" when the Games open this Friday. Tony Estanguet's confident forecast looks less far-fetched now with squadrons of police patrolling Paris' streets, fighter jets and soldiers primed to scramble, and imposing metal-fence security barriers erected like an iron curtain on both sides of the River Seine that will star in the opening show. France's vast police and military operation is in large part because the July 26-Aug. 11 Games face unprecedented security challenges. The city has repeatedly suffered deadly extremist attacks and international tensions are high because of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Rather than build an Olympic park with venues grouped together outside of the city center, like Rio de Janeiro in 2016 or London in 2012, Paris has chosen to host many of the events in the heart of the bustling capital of 2 million inhabitants, with others dotted around
Special anti-terrorism measures being put in place to safeguard the unprecedented opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics on the River Seine will also apply to all buildings along the route, meaning people who work and live there and their guests will be subjected to background security checks, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said on Thursday. Those affected will be cross-checked against security services' databases, to see whether they have previously been flagged as suspected Islamist extremists or for other radicalism, Nunez said. The wildly ambitious July 26 ceremony is proving to be a gargantuan security challenge. Athletes will be paraded through the heart of the French capital on 94 boats along a six-kilometre (nearly four-mile) stretch of the Seine, from east to west. They will be accompanied by 87 other boats for security, media and other people. All of the parade route will be inside a high-security zone that Nunez described as an "anti-terrorism perimeter". He said it wi