Paris To Face Major Disruption Ahead Of Games Opening Ceremony, Says Police Chief

Paris will face major disruption ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony along the Seine on July 26, as organisers ramp up security measures to safeguard the event, the city's police chief said.

Organisers hope the opening ceremony, in which 160 boats carrying athletes from around the world will travel a 6 kilometre route along the Seine river towards the Eiffel tower, will deliver a jaw-dropping spectacle. Some 300,000 spectators will watch from the banks of the Seine as a global audience tunes in on TV.

But the ceremony is also a major security headache, taking place against a backdrop of wars in Ukraine and Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron has already floated the possibility of scrapping the river ceremony and reverting to at least two back-up plans if the security risks become untenable.

Paris residents with a view of the Seine can invite friends to watch the opening of the 2024 Summer Games from their balconies, but should prepare for heavy traffic and limited movement, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said at a press conference.

Adjacent metro stations, most river crossings and all water traffic will be halted in the week before the open-air ceremony, Nunez said, adding that some bridges will remain open "in order not to cut Paris in two halves."

Everyone who wants to access the immediate surroundings of the Seine in the week before the Games will need to sign up on an online platform, Nunez said. Local residents hoping to access their homes, which are among the most prestigious addresses in France, will need to do the same.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who also spoke at the event said the disruption would impact around 20,000 residents and business owners.

Asked about Macron's comments earlier this month, Nunez said his teams were still working on the 'Plan A' of the river ceremony.

"As of today, we have no reason to be worried," Nunez said.

https://www.reuters.com/authors/vincent-daheron/

As The Olympics Loom, Parisians Ask: Should We Skip Town? Games Organizers Work To Win Their Hearts

Before the Paris Olympics open and upend the French capital’s usual rhythms, retiree Pierre Schapira plans to hire a car and quit town.

But with the intense Olympic security measures and traffic disruptions they’ll cause, will that even be doable? For his answer, Schapira went straight to the top — popping the question this week to chief of police Laurent Nunez himself.

As he’s already done at other town hall meetings, did so again at this one, and will do at more to come, Nunez ever-so-patiently explained that Parisians are going to have to adapt to the July 26-Aug. 11 extravaganza but that it’s not going to put their lives and livelihoods on hold.

“It’s not going to stop you from entering or leaving Paris,” Nunez said Thursday to the audience of about 200 people, including some watching via video link in an overflow room next door.

Holding the Games in the bustling heart of such a compact city, rather than in a purpose-built Olympic park in the outskirts like Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and other previous hosts, was always going to rile and worry some Parisians who can be cantankerous at the best of times. Nunez, Games organizers and City Hall officials are finding that out for themselves as they embark on a concerted campaign to win Parisian hearts and minds and get people in the Olympic mood or, at least, get ready.

“We laugh about it ... because we are spending nearly all of our evenings together,” Deputy Paris Mayor Pierre Rabadan said after he, Nunez and other organizers spent more than two hours at the meeting detailing Games preparations and responding to questions.

“It’s quite time consuming but necessary,” Rabadan said. One of their aims, he added, is “to go against the talk at the moment that it’s better to leave, that being in Paris is going to be a catastrophe and whatnot. You get that at every Games and obviously we knew that because of our concept, we’d hear that, too.”

By mostly using existing sports venues as well as temporary ones that will be erected in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and at other iconic sites before being dismantled again, Paris’ goal is to avoid the legacy of waste and vast cost generated by other Games and reduce the mega-event’s environmental impact. Images of Olympians competing amid the architectural beauty of central Paris should, organizers and the government hope, make France shine.

But for the 2.1 million people who live within the city limits and hundreds of thousands of others who commute in from the suburbs, the consequences of 10,500 athletes competing in their midst are going to be considerable. Traffic restrictions, special permits for this and that, police checkpoints, road and Metro station closures, millions of visitors from elsewhere in France and around the world. The list goes on.

“It’s a fantastic gamble but it’s going to be quite disruptive for residents,” said 79-year-old Schapira after hearing Nunez and the other speakers.

Jean-Pierre Rollin, who owns two souvenir stores near Notre Dame Cathedral on its island in the River Seine, wanted to know whether tourists will be able to get past police checkpoints before and during the July 26 opening ceremony. It is being held on the river and a security cordon will be in place along both banks.

“If we have no customers, there’s no point staying open,” Rollin told Nunez. The police chief acknowledged the security that day is going to make getting around more complicated.

Other questions also focused on the impacts of security measures. One man asked whether there’ll still be fireworks for France’s July 14 national holiday and was told there will.

Only once, when a retailer said he’d heard that daytime deliveries would be banned, did the police chief lose patience, puffing out his cheeks.

Not true, he insisted.

“I can’t repeat things 50,000 times,” he said. “I don’t want to hear things like that.”

The work of preparing people clearly has a way to go. A government website, “Plan for the Games,” offers tips. Among them: avoid Olympic crowds on public transport by riding bikes or walking.

Schapira, the retired dentist and former politician, came out of the meeting thinking that “it is indeed extraordinary to have the Games inside Paris.”

But he was nevertheless grateful that he’ll be in the Alps by then, on holiday.

“I prefer to watch them on the television,” he said. “I’m not enough of a sports fan to stay. I am happy to be leaving.”

BY JOHN LEICESTER, AP

Paris Olympics Sets $26, Lowest Rate For 1 Million Tickets

One million tickets for the 2024 Paris Olympics will be sold for 24 euros ($26.50) each with availability for all 32 sports, organizers have said.

The Paris proposal to the IOC sets the basic price lower than at the 2012 London Olympics, where the 20 pounds tickets cost more than $31 at the exchange rate then.

"This is something important for us," Paris organizing committee president Tony Estanguet said. "This is a very strong promise to offer accessibility of everyone to Olympic sports." A centralized global sales program unveiled by Paris Olympics organizers calls for pricing nearly half of the 10 million total tickets at no more than 50 euros ($55).

For the 2024 Paralympics, prices start at 15 euros ($15.60) and about half of the 3.4 million tickets will cost no more than 25 euros ($27.50).

Paris aims to raise 1.1 billion euros ($1.22 billion) in revenue — about 30% of its budget — from ticket sales, Estanguet said.

Hitting that target would lift ticket income for Paris above the $1 billion raised by London from more than eight million tickets sold.

Tokyo organizers aimed for $800 million from ticket sales before the COVID-19 pandemic prevented fans attending nearly all of the events at the Games postponed to last year.

Fans wanting to secure tickets for Paris events can start toward the end of this year in a process overhauled to include buyers worldwide. Previously, tickets were sold in the host country and a network of agents worldwide handled sales elsewhere.

Estanguet said the new system should "limit the frustration" of people who previously specified their preferred tickets with no guarantee of getting them.

Instead, a two-month registration period will let prospective buyers sign up for a lottery that will allocate the winners a time slot next February of several hours to choose the tickets they want for multiple sports sessions.

"We can then guarantee that if you buy those tickets you will receive them," Estanguet said.

Single tickets for events will go on sale in May 2023, and a third sales phase will start toward the end of next year.

Estanguet said a new ticketing portal managed by French companies would also offer a resale platform.

Asked if discussions were held about limiting portal access for residents of Russia and Belarus, because of the invasion of Ukraine, Estanguet said no decision was needed for several months.