France’s chief stated Monday that the nation has alternate options ready if security threats require altering its plans for a spectacular opening ceremony to the Paris Olympics this summer time.

The July 26 showpiece is about to be the primary to not happen inside a stadium, with the formidable ceremony to as an alternative characteristic 160 boats setting off along the Seine as large crowds line the river’s banks.

The French capital’s well-known waterway will host a ship for every nation competing within the video games, carrying a complete of 10,500 athletes on a 3½-mile route by means of the center of the town. Around 120 heads of state and senior authorities figures from world wide will even be there, the International Olympic Committee has stated.

Such a plan comes with acute safety dangers, significantly for a serious world occasion happening amid the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

French President Emmanuel Macron stated Monday that he’s assured the ceremony will go forward as deliberate and be successful. But, he stated, ought to a security risk come up that threatens this meticulous operation, he has a Plan B and even a Plan C in thoughts.

“We can do it and we will do it,” Macron advised France’s RMC Radio and BFM TV on Monday morning. “If we think there are security risks, we’ll have Plan B’s and even Plan C’s,” he added.

He stated that a type of alternate options may very well be to carry the ceremony within the Trocadero Square going through the Eiffel Tower, the place the river route culminates. The plan is already for the ultimate parts of the occasion to occur right here.

Another possibility is to maneuver it to a extra conventional sports activities stadium setting within the Stade de France, the nationwide area to the north of Paris that is because of host monitor and subject occasions.

Crowds of 300,000 are anticipated alongside the Seine to try to seize a glimpse of the ceremony, with dozens of big screens to relay the motion. Those plans had been scaled again from preliminary ambitions for some 600,000 riverside spectators, most of them free tickets.

Authorities in Paris will use pioneering surveillance technology to watch attainable threats, with plans to deploy SWAT groups the place mandatory.

The safety operation in Paris is so huge that different nations are serving to.

Poland is among the many 46 nations so as to add its army personnel to the French operation, which itself is bolstered by 18,000 French troopers.

Speaking earlier this month, Macron advised journalists that he had little doubt that Russia would goal the video games in a roundabout way.

“I have no doubt, I have no doubt, including in informational terms. Every day, it [Russia] fuels rumors about the fact that we could not do this or that, so it would be a risk,” he stated on the inauguration of an Olympic swimming pool close to Paris.

Beyond safety, the Olympics are additionally contending with worries concerning the Seine’s suitability for some swimming occasions. But Macron put aside worries about air pollution ranges, saying Monday that he nonetheless deliberate to take a dip within the river earlier than the Games start.

His interview got here a day earlier than the Olympic flame will likely be lit at a ceremony in Olympia, Greece, setting off a relay earlier than its arrival in Paris for the opening ceremony.