 "Is the Paris 2024 Olympics in danger? From IS terror to Russia, big threats to the Games")
It is the biggest sporting event of the year. Thousands of athletes from 206 countries or territories and millions of spectators will descend upon Paris for the Summer Olympic Games. It’s a testing time for France. There are threats of protests, terrorism and cyberattacks.
The opening ceremony is not until Friday but the Paris 2024 Olympics is already touted to be one of the riskiest in history. There is political uncertainty in France. To add to this, there are geopolitical tensions amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Gaza conflict. It is ironic as the Olympics originated in ancient Greece to promote peace between nations.
France will deploy 35,000 police every day during the Games with 45,000 for the opening ceremony, a French interior ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by CNN. Apart from this, 10,000 soldiers will be deployed in the Paris region and they will have the support of 1,800 police officers from the world over.
There is bound to be palpable tension in the air, as organisers and security officials face a big challenge – to keep Paris safe. As the Games begin, we take a look at the big threats the Olympics faces.
The political instability in France
French President Emmanuel Macron is readying to welcome more than 100 heads of state and lakhs of spectators for Friday’s opening ceremony. He had hoped that the Paris Olympics would cement his legacy. But his gamble to call a snap election backfired. It has left him weak and now casts a gloomy shadow over his big moment on the global stage.
Today Marcon is seen as fragile – an unpopular president presiding over a caretaker government as France hosts the 2024 Olympics.
“Macron expected to welcome the Games like an emperor. But now he’s a lame duck,” French historian Patrick Weil told Reuters.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsWhile the French president insists that “there is no bitter taste”, he can only hope things do not spiral. After the elections threw a hung parliament , there was anarchy on the streets of Paris – thousands of right-wing protesters and left-wing celebrators flooded the streets of the capital. There were clashes and rioting.
Now Macron can only hope all of that is behind them. To keep the crisis at bay for a week weeks, he suggested that he was unlikely to name a prime minister until the Games were over. “There is a sort of truce,” he claims.
Macron’s aides, Olympic officials, lawmakers and public figures stressed to Reuters that the show would go on, with years of security and logistics planning unaffected by the politics. But some acknowledged the fallout from the political crisis would hang over the Games.
The terror threat
With world leaders, top athletes and visitors in Paris, the terror alert in France is at its highest level.
Several extremist plots – including one last week – have been thwarted. There has been growing concern over the rise of far-right extremism in Europe, especially after the snap election in France.
French authorities have foiled at least “four terrorist conspiracies” in Paris so far this year, reports ABC. Last week, a right-wing sympathiser was arrested in eastern France on suspicion of plotting attacks during the Olympics. Last month, a Ukrainian-Russian man blew himself up with explosive materials in a hotel room near Paris. He is suspected of participating in a terror conspiracy and a bomb plot after materials to manufacture bombs were recovered from him.
According to Paris police chief Laurent Nunez, there was “no clear-cut threat to the Games”, but terrorism was a concern. “We are concerned about the threat of terrorism, especially Islamic terrorism, but also the low-intensity threat from radicalised environmentalists, left-wing extremists, and the pro-Palestinian movement,” he said last month.
Paris has had a brush with terrorism in the past. The one that remains unforgettable is the 13 November 2015 attack at the Bataclan concert hall in which 131 civilians were killed. The Islamic State was behind the strike.
In the nine years since France has been the leading victim of Islamic terror in the West. It has witnessed more than 40 militant attacks, of which 26 have been linked to the Islamic State, according to a report in Foreign Policy. During this same period, more than 20 have been foiled.
While the Islamic State is not as much in the spotlight as a few years ago, the group and its affiliates continue to carry out major attacks like the one near Moscow in March in which over 130 were killed.
The rise of antisemitism
The Paris Olympics comes against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. There has been a surge in antisemitism in the West and France is not spared.
Antisemitic acts nearly quadrupled in the country last year, reflecting a surge in discrimination against Jews since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Israeli athletes have received death threats; they are being booed in stadiums. A video going viral on X and Telegram of a man purporting to be a Hamas fighter threatening the Olympics in Paris has created alarm. In the clip, he is seen addressing the French people and Macron, saying in Arabic that “rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris” for what he said was France’s support of Israel in the war with Hamas and its welcoming Israeli athletes to the Olympic Games.
Now researchers at Microsoft say that the fake video was part of a Russia-linked misinformation campaign meant to disrupt the event.
Israel has urged its citizens travelling to Paris to exercise increased caution, warning that it believes that global jihadist and Iran-backed terror organisations “are seeking to carry out attacks on Israeli/Jewish targets around the Olympics”.
Venues and games are already witnessing pro-Palestine protests.
The threat from Russia
There is also the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. France has picked its side and it’s Kyiv.
The fallout of the conflict is visible. Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from competing under their countries’ flags. However, some will be present as “individual neutral athletes”.
France has witnessed a string of mysterious events, including arson attacks, which have been linked to Russia. There is concern over Moscow’s attempts to disrupt the Olympics as retaliation for Paris and other Western government’s support to Ukraine, according to a report in Vox.
Dale Buckner, CEO of the security firm Global Guardian which has provided advice for those traveling to France for the Games, told CNN that the country has “a lot of enemies” due to its stance on a wide range of international and domestic issues. Authorities are also “paying particular attention to Russian and Belarusian citizens,” he added.
Russia is also behind disinformation campaigns against France, Macron, the International Olympic Committee and the Paris 2024 Olympics. Several Russian influencers have been targeting the Games since June last year, according to a special Microsoft Threat Intelligence report titled “Russian Influence Efforts Converge on 2024 Paris Olympic Games” published last month.
On Telegram, a film titled “Olympics Has Fallen”, mimicking the 2013 political thriller “Olympus Has Fallen”, was released last June and fake news to spread fear and deter people from heading to Paris has flooded social media, according to the report.
The Paris Olympics “are the most geopolitically charged Olympics that we have seen in decades,” political scientist Jules Boykoff, a former professional soccer player, was told Washington Post.
Cyberthreats
Among the biggest threats is that of cyberattacks. This could put the country’s electric communication and transportation grids at risk, Buckner told CNN.
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games are facing an “unprecedented level” of cyber threats, authorities warn. Organisers have partnered with major technology companies and government agencies to mitigate them, according to the World Economic Forum.
The Games are expected to sell over 13 million tickets. The massive ticketing operation and surge in commerce, experts warn, make the event an attractive target for cyberattacks.
“The Games are facing an unprecedented level of threat,” said Vincent Strubel, the director general of ANSSI, France’s cybersecurity agency, told Reuters. “But we’ve also done an unprecedented amount of preparation work so I think we’re a step ahead of the attackers.”
In 2021, the Games in Tokyo endured an estimated 450 million cyberattacks, according to technology giant Cisco. The company, which is an official partner for Paris 2024, says it expects eight times more attacks on the Paris Games.
The past attacks
The Olympics have been targeted in the past. The most chilling story comes from the 1972 Munich Games when 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.
In 1996, a bomb blast killed one woman and injured more than 100 people at the Atlanta Games.
In 2024, security officials face a challenge like no other. But they have assured the Paris is in safe hands.
With inputs from agencies
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