"We're 4-0 up at half-time but there's still a second half to play, so we're going to stay focused until the final whistle." Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez used a football metaphor at his press conference on Friday, August 23 to sum up his state of mind ahead of the launch of the Paralympic Games. Three days earlier, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, had used a similar analogy.

For this second chapter, which opens on Wednesday, August 28, "it is in every respect the same set-up as for the Olympic Games, with a little less manpower involved," summarized Nuñez. The Paralympic Games will be shorter than the Olympic Games, 12 days rather than 17, attended by fewer people – four million expected compared with 12 million – and held at 19 venues – compared with 41 – located exclusively in Ile-de-France and Châteauroux. On a day-to-day basis, an average of 25,000 police and gendarmes will be on duty, compared with 45,000 for the Olympic opening ceremony. Normally, during the summer months, only 60% of police personnel are available, the rest being on vacation. It has therefore been necessary to restrict the number of days off taken in order to achieve 100% presence during the Olympic Games, and 80% for the Paralympic Games.

In addition to the internal security forces, there will be 8,000 Opération Sentinelle troops and 10,000 private security agents. Intervention units – the Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN), the Brigade de Recherche et d'Intervention (BRI) and Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion (RAID) – will also provide reinforcements, as was the case during the Olympic Games, by calling in 300 agents.

In fact, some of the agents have already been on duty since August 25, when the Paralympic flame arrived in France. Unlike the Olympic Games, not one but 12 relays have been simultaneously carrying the flame through some 50 towns and cities across the country, outside the capital on August 25 and 26, and in the Ile-de-France region on August 27 and 28. Leaving from Calais (Pas-de-Calais), the main relay will benefit from more security, and will be supervised by police officers and gendarmes on foot. This protection bubble will be reinforced by an anti-drone device, motorcyclists, a mobile force unit and GIGN gendarmes.

In Paris, the security climax will be reached on the evening of August 28 with the opening ceremony. As with the Olympic Games, this event will not take place in a stadium, but in the city itself. The 4,400 athletes expected to take part will parade down the Champs-Elysées to Place de la Concorde. To accommodate the public, in addition to the stands already installed on the square for the Olympic Games, four others will be added along the avenue, with up to 50,000 spectators expected. Fifteen thousand police officers and gendarmes will be on duty, to enforce the various restricted traffic perimeters in particular, which will come into force that morning.

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