France ready to change 2024 Olympic Games opening plans due to security

(Patria) - France is ready to move the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games from the Seine River to another location if the security situation requires it, said President Emmanuel Macron.

"As professionals, we obviously have a plan B, a plan C, and so on," Macron told France 5 television when asked if the security situation, currently marked by heightened alert across Europe due to tensions in the Middle East, could thwart plans to hold the ceremony as scheduled, Reuters reported.

Macron said he was against "fortune-telling" and abruptly changing plans, but added that plan B could be activated if "the level of insecurity requires us to reconsider the initial scheme" without providing details.

European security officials have warned of the growing risk of attacks by Islamist militants amid the war between Israel and Hamas, with the greatest threat likely posed by "lone wolf" attackers who are difficult to track. France raised its security threshold in October, when a man fatally stabbed a teacher at a school in northern France.

Earlier this month, the country's sports minister dismissed changing plans after a man armed with a knife and hammer killed a German tourist and left two people injured near the Eiffel Tower, saying "this is not something we are doing".

France expects around 600,000 visitors when 160 boats are scheduled to depart from Pont d'Austerlitz on July 26 for a 6-kilometer journey to Pont d'Iena, a bridge in Paris.