France prevented three attempted attacks during the Olympic and Paralympic Games | El Diario Vasco

French security forces have foiled three attempted attacks during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which ended on Sunday, according to Olivier Christen, head of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, in an interview with France Info on Wednesday.

“Ensuring security is a challenge that we have met thanks to a very important commitment in recent months,” said Christen, referring to the large deployment of police, gendarmes and military personnel during the two major sporting events that marked the summer in France.

Security was one of the positive aspects of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the French capital. Apart from the sabotage of several high-speed railway lines on 26 July – the day of the opening ceremony, whose perpetrators are still unknown, there were no major incidents. That did not mean, however, that the terrorist threat was non-existent.

Christen explained that one of the attacks that was prevented targeted “one of the bars near the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in Saint-Étienne” in the centre-east of France. Several matches of the football tournament, in which Spain was crowned Olympic champion, were played there.

Another of these terrorist projects was intended to bring bloodshed to “Israeli institutions or representatives of Israel in Paris.” And the third was planned by two people from the Gironde, a department (province) in southwestern France.

«IS has not disappeared»

Five people were arrested and imprisoned as a result of these actions. One of them was under 18 years old. “Islamic State has not disappeared and it spreads its propaganda, which has an impact on the population,” especially among minors who are “very sensitive to it,” warned Christen, referring to the Islamic fundamentalist organisation which has lost much of its presence in Syria and Iraq for years. Although France has not suffered mass attacks since 2016, the threat persists in the country, notably due to the presence of 4,000 people on file for “terrorist radicalisation.”

The prosecutor said that house searches and house arrests had been stepped up in the context of the Games. These can affect people who have not been convicted or even charged, following the laws adopted after the wave of attacks in 2015 and 2016. “There were 936 house searches in 2024, while in 2023 there were 153,” Christen explained.

These drastic anti-terrorist measures also led to some Kafkaesque situations. For example, the case of Amine, a student from the northern suburbs of Paris, whose internet credentials were stolen. Because of the activity of these hackers, who watched videos of decapitations, he was condemned to not being able to leave his town during the summer.

There was also the case of a sound technician who was hired to work at one of the competitions, but was unable to carry out that work because he was not given accreditation for the Games after being arrested during a union demonstration in 2016, without leading to any conviction. The Olympic summer was not a party for everyone.