French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday, July 22, that Israeli athletes were "welcome" for the Paris Olympics, rejecting calls from some left-wing French MPs, and the Palestinian Olympic Committee for a boycott.
"Israeli athletes are welcome in our country. They must be able to compete under their colors because the Olympic movement has decided it," he told TV channel France 2 in an interview, adding that it was "France's responsibility to provide them with security." "I condemn in the strongest possible way all those who create risks for these athletes and implicitly threaten them," he said.
Discussing the opening ceremony for the Olympics on Friday as helicopters could be heard in the background hovering over the capital, the president added "We will all see on Friday night why it was worth the hassle." Much of central Paris is off-limits ahead of the open-air ceremony along the river Seine, with 45,000 members of the security forces set to be on duty as well as 10,000 soldiers to prevent any incident that would ruin the show. "There is a security challenge and it's true for all capitals which organize the Games," Macron said. "It's true for the opening ceremony. It will be true for the whole of the Games."
The French President's remarks come in the wake of Tuesday's arrest by French police of a Russian man suspected of planning acts of "destabilization" during the Paris Olympics, according to prosecutors.
The man, born in 1984, was held in custody and placed under judicial investigation on suspicion of "organizing events likely to lead to destabilization during the Olympic Games", a source in the state prosecution service, who asked not to be named. The source said an investigation was opened into "passing intelligence to a foreign power to arouse hostilities in France", adding that the crime was punishable by up to 30 years in jail.
Prosecutors said a visit to the man's home "at the request of the interior ministry" had uncovered evidence of the suspected plans. They did not give any details of the alleged plot, except to say that it was not terrorist, and that specialist anti-terrorist prosecutors were not following the case.