PARIS • Nothing says “Welcome to Paris” like a dude wielding a big, bad gun. Alongside gymnasts, swimmers and break-dancers, I have traveled to the City of Light for the Summer Olympics. But they aren’t fun and games to a small army of police and military personnel determined to keep Paris safe for more than 10,000 athletes on the world’s biggest athletic stage.
“Parlez-vous français?” said a policeman carrying an assault weapon as he stepped off the curb and stuck his hand inside the open window of an idling taxi where I was half asleep after a long overnight flight from Denver. Startled to attention by the intimidating gun on his back, I sat up straight as the vehicle waited at a stop light in the 17th Arrondissement, the beautiful Parisian neighborhood which flows northwest from the Arc de Triomphe in wide boulevards colorfully painted by leafy trees, roses and lavender. I quickly realized the policeman wasn’t interested in small talk with a knucklehead like me.
His mission was a random inspection of the back seat of the taxi transporting a foreigner. He asked to lift a shirt off the seats and move a backpack from the floorboard as he took a quick look. I respectfully obliged while my cabbie raised his hands in disbelief, shook his head in disgust and offered me apologetic eyes.
During the Olympics, Paris is more than determined to be “the safest place in the world.” Those words are a solemn, no-messing-around vow of Tony Estanguet, the man in charge of these Summer Games. But there is a price to pay.
The restrictions on carefree freedom are far beyond the cost of military boats that patrol the Seine and the hours required to fly surveillance drones by a show of a security force whose numbers will swell beyond 50,000 in the city from the opening ceremony on Friday until the competition ends Aug. 11. As a sports journalist hopelessly attracted to all the controversies, excesses and glories of the Olympics as I hunker down for my 13th trip to the games, I am now forced to confront a very sobering question for the dangerous times in which we now live: How do you keep the Olympics locked down and safe against terrorism without squeezing the life out of Paris? This city is a crown jewel of Europe.
But on the eve of the games, there’s an empty feeling along the banks of the Seine, as many locals seem to have taken leave, after watching the heart of their beloved city become entrapped in a massive steel spider web of barricades. Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tour are beauties behind bars. The first “QR Code Olympics” complains Saccage 2024, a group motivated by environmental concerns to oppose a summer sports party that will cost nearly $10 billion to host.
Yes, big brother is watching over the games. But I can also attest the sun does still shine on Paris. There was the laughter of children to be heard on the playground and a young couple to be seen holding hands on a bench along the shady Promenade Pereire as I walked Tuesday from my apartment to the Main Press Center on a pleasant summer morning.
I’m also told, however, that this July is as close as one of the world’s most vibrant cities has felt to a ghost town since pandemic restrictions held Paris in their grip back in 2020. Can the joy of sport be greater than the paranoia that now often intrudes on any large gathering of people? You don’t need me to tell you the world can be a violent and unsettling place in 2024, from war-torn Ukraine to refugee camps in Gaza to a presidential campaign rally in the United States. The Summer Olympics don't rise to the level of a police state.
But to discourage a repeat of the terrorism that shook Paris in November 2015, killing more than 125 people, visitors to the city are definitely viewed with a suspicious eye. I learned that very well Monday afternoon, within two hours of landing in France. “Bienvenue a Paris,” said the policeman, allowing the taxi to move along and deliver me to the QR Code Olympics.
Let the games begin. And let’s pray all the ugly, violent tendencies of this crazy world stay away..
