“Today the really main and very probable plan is to organize this ceremony on the Seine,” Tony Estanguet told RFI, interviewed from Olympia in Greece a few hours before the traditional lighting ceremony of the Olympic flame. .
“The President of the Republic was very clear yesterday, the main objective is to achieve a very beautiful, absolutely unique opening ceremony, the first time that it will be held outside a stadium, in the center of Paris on the Seine. “, did he declare.
This Monday morning, the President of the Republic tried to reassure that this ceremony would take place, while outlining for the first time “plans B and C” in the event of a terrorist threat. He had already assured that alternative scenarios were being considered. For the first time, he began to detail them, citing in particular the Stade de France, which had until now been excluded by the authorities.
“We are working on a plan A and in plan A, there is also all the confidence we have in the professionalism of the teams working on security,” the mayor, for her part, declared to AFP. from Paris Anne Hidalgo, present in Greece. “France is a large country which organized” Euro-2016 and COP 21 “just after the attacks (of November 2015), it was also a challenge,” she recalled.
The hypothesis of the Stade de France, which also hosts Olympic rugby events before the opening of the Olympic Games, would be a purely ceremonial ceremony, without the artistic dimension, to officially pronounce the opening of the Olympic Games, according to sources close to the matter.
