"Those are not empty words: this is, for the Ministry of the Interior, the biggest logistical and security challenge we've ever had to organize." On Tuesday, March 5, before the Senate's Law Commission, Gérald Darmanin unveiled his security plan for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP), scheduled from July 26 to August 11. Or, rather, according to the interior minister's calendar: from May 8, the date of the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseille, to September 8, at the closing of the Paralympic Games. Between these two dates, anything and everything seems possible in the eyes of the security services, who are forced to "get a little paranoid," according to a source at the ministry. In other words, they are considering every scenario, starting with the worst.

Before the members of the Senate, Darmanin not only announced the numbers for the opening ceremony, scheduled to run from 7:30 pm to 11 pm on July 26 – namely 104,000 people for the paid seats on the lower quays of the Seine, and 220,000 for the upper quays – half the number initially planned (600,000 spectators), which quickly proved to be too large to ensure security and smooth running of the festivities.

He also highlighted the main threats that law enforcement would have to face. First and foremost, the risk of Islamist terrorism. "Nothing is characterized today" he argued, taking care to point out that it was still "early in the competition" to get a precise idea of the situation, as intelligence is rarely "an exact science." "Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State intend to do it but do not have the means at this stage," he added.

However, a so-called "endogenous" threat remains, embodied by individuals already present on national territory, capable of acting unpredictably or, on the contrary, after having being activated by terrorist organizations abroad.

According to Céline Berthon, director-general of domestic security at the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), who also testified before the Senate's Law Commission, this risk is characterized by a "resurgence trend (...) characterized by fairly young profiles, often very active online and extremely avid consumers of violent content, capable of acting quickly with rudimentary means." Berthon announced the creation of a "specific structure that will exist before and during" the Games, tasked with addressing and processing all reports relating to dubious profiles, and staffed by personnel from six intelligence services of the Ministry of the Interior.

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