The Paris Olympic Games officially get underway on Friday, at a period of high geopolitical tensions. An impressive security operation has been put in place, but the Games also face unprecedented security challenges.
France is rolling out a vast operation to ensure the security of the Olympic Games, deploying more than 30,000 police officers, 20,000 security guards and 10,000 military personnel.
More than 15 million tourists are expected in the French capital during the competition, and Friday’s opening ceremony will be watched by a billion television viewers worldwide.
A security perimeter has been erected along both banks of the Seine river in central Paris, sealed off by police checkpoints and metal-fence security barriers for the opening ceremony, when about 7,000 athletes will travel down the river on a flotilla of 85 boats.
"We are ready and we will be ready throughout the Games," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
The risk of foreign interference or a terrorist attack remains high, according to French intelligence services. Despite the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and the death of al Qaeda's leader in Yemen, “the threat is real and constant, it hasn't changed for several years,” says Wassim Nasr, a FRANCE 24 journalist who co-authored an article on security threats to the Paris Games for US counter-terrorism magazine CTC Sentinel.
The 'latent threat' of Islamist terrorism
According to a report by public radio station France Inter, French intelligence services have identified a dozen leaders of the Islamic State group in Turkey and Syria capable of activating terrorist sleeper cells in France at any time.
“There’s the latent, constant threat of someone acting alone, picking up a knife and deciding to attack in the name of a group,” says Nasr. On Monday, a man already convicted of Islamist radicalism was indicted on terrorism charges after attacking a cab driver with a knife near the city of Le Mans in Western France a week earlier.
Beyond terrorist groups, some state actors are hoping to take advantage of the divisions caused by the war in Gaza to create public disorder.
“The turmoil of the war in Gaza may lead some people to create public disorder, to prevent teams from arriving where they are supposed to compete,” says Nasr. Particularly at risk, the Israeli Olympic delegation is being given 24-hour security with a reinforced police escort to travel to the various competition venues.
'Damaging France's image worldwide'
Finally, for several weeks now, the police have recorded an increase in attempts by pro-Russian groups to disrupt the smooth running of the Games. On Sunday, Kirill Gryaznov, an agent for Russia’s intelligence service (FSB) with no diplomatic cover, was arrested in Paris and charged with “intelligence with a foreign power with a view to incite hostilities in France”, according to Le Monde.
The following day, a 44-year-old Frenchman and two Russian women were arrested as they attempted to drive into the restricted zone along the Seine. One of the women, found hiding in the trunk of the car, had twice been refused accreditation by the Olympics Organising Committee for security reasons.
They have been released from police custody, but the Directorate-General for Internal Security (DGSI), France's counter-espionage and counter-terrorism agency, will question them again after further investigation, according to the daily Le Parisien.
A few weeks earlier, on June 3, the intelligence services had already been put on alert after a 26-year-old Russian-Ukrainian was detained after suffering severe burns when the bomb he was making exploded in his hotel room near Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. He has since been indicted by an anti-terrorist judge for “criminal terrorist conspiracy” and “possession of a substance or explosive with a view to preparing destruction or harm to persons, in connection with a terrorist undertaking”.
So far, only Gryaznov is suspected of working directly for Russian intelligence. But for David Colon, a professor and researcher at Sciences-Po in Paris, the recent arrests could be explained by the fact that “Russia no longer has many operatives on the ground” since 41 of its diplomats, “including undercover intelligence officers", were expelled from France in April, 2022.
Informational warfare against France
The recent disruptive actions in France are one part of the information war Russia has been waging for several years against the West, in particular against countries backing Ukraine. “The production of fake news is constant, but as the Olympics approach, it has been increasing,” notes Colon.
A case in point was Wednesday’s post on X of a video purporting to show a member of Hamas making threats against France has now been viewed more than 14 million times. It shows a man, his face hidden by a Middle Eastern headscarf, or keffiyeh, bearing a Palestinian flag on his chest and rebuking France for supporting Israel. He then holds up what looks like a decapitated and bloody head of “Marianne”, the symbol of republican France.
This was what is known in espionage jargon as a “false flag” operation, meant to confuse or provoke discord. “The Russian operatives posed as Hamas,” says Colon, but in posting content that was deliberately unconvincing, they hoped that the video would be attributed to “a third party, in this case Israel”.
Colon says that Russia has every interest in stirring up trouble during the Olympics: “On the one hand, its athletes have been banned from competing under the Russian flag, leading the Kremlin to wage a campaign to denigrate the IOC, the Olympics and the city of Paris. On the other hand, the war in Ukraine is also a factor, and France is a major supporter of Ukraine. Finally, the Olympics offer global media exposure, and therefore an opportunity to damage France's image worldwide.”
Hackers may also try to take advantage of the Olympics to cause trouble out of sheer malice or greed. During the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, organisers suffered over 450 million cyber attacks.
On Thursday, Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that a vast “disinfection operation” was underway to eliminate a computer virus that had affected millions of users, including many in France.
“On the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games, this operation demonstrates the vigilance of the various players, in France and abroad, mobilised to combat all forms of cybercrime,” Beccuau said.
This article is a translation from the original in French.
