France Ready To Change Plans For The Opening Of The 2024 Paris Olympics From The Senine River To Other Locations If Necessary

Illustration of the 2024 Paris Olympics. (Wikimedia Commons/Chabe01)

JAKARTA - France is ready to move the location of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony from the Senine River to another location if a security situation needs it, President Emmanuel Macron said.

"Given that we are professional, there is clearly Plan B, Plan C and so on," President Macron told France 5 television.

President Macron's explanation answers the question of whether the security situation - which is currently being marked by increased vigilance across Europe over tensions in the Middle East "can thwart holding the opening ceremony as planned.

However, President Macron said he was against "devading" and changing plans in a hurry. But he added, Plan B could be triggered if "the level of insecurity requires us to revisit the initial scheme" without providing details.

Earlier, European security officials had warned of an increased risk of attacks by militants amid the Israel-Hamas war, with the greatest threat most likely coming from hard-to-tracked 'lone wolf' attackers.

Meanwhile, France itself raised its security threshold in October, when a man with a knife killed a teacher at a school in northern France.

Earlier this month, the French Sports Minister ruled out a change in plans to open the 2024 Olympics, after a man armed with a knife and hammer killed a German tourist and injured two people near the Eiffel Tower.

"We don't have a 'plan B', we have a plan in which there are several sub-plans with a certain number of customization variables," Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera told France Inter radio earlier this month.

The attack took place at Quai de Grenelle, where it is also included in the planned opening ceremony of the upcoming 2024 Olympics.

When asked if the government was considering a change in plans to hold a ceremony on the Seine River, with hundreds of thousands of spectators expected to be on the banks of the river amid security threats, Minister Amelie said: "This is not something we are working on."

"We have the capacity to secure the event", he said, adding certain details and saying the security perimeter would be adjusted ahead of the Olympics.