Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin announced on Friday that around 6,000 police would be deployed next month to secure the arrival of the Olympic torch from Greece to Marseille, France.
Local firefighters and police will be joined by additional police officers, meaning security will be even tighter than when Pope Francis visited the city in September 2023.
The Olympic torch will be handed over to French organizers in Athens on Friday before being transported to Marseille on a French 19th-century sailing ship.
The three-masted Belem set sail from Greece on Saturday and is scheduled to enter the old port of France's second-largest city on the evening of May 8, in front of around 150,000 spectators.
Darmanin said elite tactical units, bomb disposal teams, maritime police and anti-drone teams would be deployed to secure the old port.
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He added that all of the more than 1,000 boats that signed up to sail along the coastline before the Belem arrived at the port would be inspected and “demined” that day.
The minister said there was “no specific threat” to the incident, but law enforcement was preparing several hypothetical scenarios.
Some of these were related to “radical Islamism,” but the “far right and far left” could also pose a risk, he said.
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Darmanin said he would “take all measures required by anti-terrorism laws to monitor and prevent” any incident.
French authorities also had a Plan B in place in case the winds were too strong (more than 25 knots) and Belém was unable to enter the port.
“But Marseille always has great weather, so I don't imagine something like this will happen,” he said.
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