Security tight for Paris climate conference
Nearly 150 world leaders meet a mere two weeks after terrorist attacks
France implemented exceptional security measures Sunday as nearly 150 world leaders gather here for a climate change summit barely two weeks after the multiple terrorist attacks that struck the French capital.
About 2,800 French police are guarding the Le Bourget conference center 7 miles north of central Paris, where President Obama will attend Monday’s opening of the 12-day summit, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The conference will be one of the largest international gatherings ever held in France and may set a record for the number of presidents and prime ministers under one roof outside of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It comes as France’s security forces are on full alert for additional terror plots and with some suspects still at large.
Early Monday, Obama made an unannounced stop at the Bataclan concert hall, site of the worst of the Paris attacks. He was met there by French President François Hollande. Obama stood for a minute of silence before laying down a rose at the memorial without saying a word.
On Sunday, dozens of police vans circled the vicinity of the conference and spotters were placed on overpasses and other structures. Some sections of major highways and roads that link Le Bourget to central Paris were closed. Heightened security was also apparent along Le Bourget’s main street, where many convenience stores and fast-food restaurants were shuttered.
George Taylor of iJET, a risk assessment and planning firm, said that planning the security for an event on the scale of the Paris climate talks would probably have taken a year and subsequent to the Paris attacks, more work on drills would have taken place.
In Paris and throughout France, thousands more police tightened
border checks and enforced emergency security legislation that allows Hollande to ban public demonstrations and place many people, including climate activists, under house arrest.
That did not stop a group of demonstrators Sunday from forming a human chain along the previously planned route of a climate protest that was called off by the government after the attacks. A separate event saw hundreds of pairs of shoes, including pairs from Pope Francis and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, left on Place de la Republique to evoke the canceled marches.
Those demonstrations were marred by violence Sunday when several hundred protesters, some in masks, clashed with police.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 174 people were jailed for possible charges.