Paris Olympics: Security Concerns!
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
A sixteen-year-old French boy has been arrested by French Police, after posting a message on social media, stating that he wished to launch a suicide attack during the Paris Summer Olympic Games this year.
He planned to make an explosive belt, detonate it and “die as a martyr in the name of the Islamic caliphate.”
Apart from this, there are general security concerns surrounding the staging of the Olympics, not least in relation to the opening ceremony in July.
It is planned to hold this ceremony on the river Seine with the competitors on boats sailing past hundreds of thousands of spectators on the banks of the river. Described by some as a logistical nightmare.
However, President Macron’s Government has played down the threat of a terrorist attack at the opening ceremony, arguing that this site will be the safest in France, because everybody entering will be thoroughly checked!
British Police officers will be drafted in, together with several thousand other foreign Police officers, to protect the Games.
These officers will provide specialist skills, such as teams of sniffer dogs, because the French security services do not have sufficient of them to check for bombs and explosives at all the Olympic sites.
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
