 "France braces for terrorism on the eve of Euro 2016")
With around 2.5 million people descending on France for the UEFA European Championship (Euro) 2016 football tournament, which kicks off Friday, French officials have acknowledged that even as they take all possible steps to prevent and deter terrorist attacks, there is no such thing as zero risk.
In Paris, the police fear they will be so overstretched that they have asked the government to close huge and popular "fan zones" for some matches. So far, the government has demurred, even while conceding the risks. "We must say the truth to the French people: zero per cent precautions means 100 per cent risk, but 100 per cent precautions does not mean zero per cent risk," Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said in late May.
At a forum last week, Cazeneuve was categorical: "I cannot guarantee that we will not have a confrontation with terrorists." The American and British governments have effectively warned their citizens to stay away, calling the crowded sports events, as well as transportation hubs and other venues broadcasting the games, "potential targets for terrorist attacks." Euro 2016, a month-long tournament involving 24 national teams from across Europe, begins in Paris and a total of 51 matches will be played in 10 cities around the country. Arriving after a year in which France was hit by two major terrorist attacks, and after bombings in Brussels in March, the tournament has crystallised the seemingly permanent security fears Europeans must live.
The biggest targets, security officials fear, could be the planned outdoor fan zones equipped with enormous screens to televise games. Around 90,000 spectators could gather in the fan zone on the Champ de Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris; as many as 80,000 on the white sand beach, the Plage du Prado, in Marseille; and 20,000 on the central Place Bellecour in Lyon, among other places.
The threat to matches is by no means unfamiliar. The first suicide bombers to explode on the night of the November 13, 2014, attacks did so at the Stade de France, just outside Paris, where French and German players were on the pitch and President François Hollande was in attendance.
Sporting events have long attracted terrorists, with 168 attacks linked to sports between 1972 and 2004, according to an essay by Richard Walton, former head of counterterrorism command for the Metropolitan Police in London. The most recent suggestion that the Islamic State had its eye on Euro 2016 matches came from Mohamed Abrini, one of the suspects arrested in connection with the attacks in Paris and Brussels. He said the group intended to target France during the tournament. A strike would almost certainly cast a pall on, if not derail, the tournament.
In some respects, France is gambling not just on the present, but on the future, since tourism represents nine per cent of the country's gross domestic product, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. It was the sector most shaken after the terror attacks that killed 130 people last year.
Although there are no specific threats so far, according to France's interior ministry, all the available information points to a daunting level of risk.
On the eve of the matches, security forces are reassessing each public space - the stadiums, public transport and, most of all, the outdoor fan zones - to ensure access for elite police forces as well as emergency medical services.
The housing facilities for the 24 national teams are also drawing close attention from law enforcement officials, a concern ever since the 1972 attacks in Munich against Israel's Olympic team.
A more likely scenario, they fear, is a repeat of the kind of attack staged in November at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were gunned down by attackers wearing suicide vests. Another concern is the possibility of lone-wolf attacks by a single individual, which the Islamic State has urged its followers to carry out.
"The Islamic State and other groups, Al Qaeda, also use bombs, but there's a preference for these kinds of shooting rampages," said Henry Wilkinson, the director of intelligence analysis for the Risk Advisory Group, a British company carrying out security assessments for Euro 2016.
Yet French officials argue they have tried to take every precaution and have made clear that they will not bow to fear. Nor would they consider moving the tournament to a less-vulnerable country.
Doing so would be "meeting the terrorists' will," Cazeneuve said. "We will never do that."
©2016 The New York Times News Service
