Big challenge to change the agenda of fear
Frenchman had guns and explosives
IN Montmartre’s bustling Place du Tertre in northern Paris, one of the street artists paused and turned away from her oil painting.
She had been waiting for a British accent and it was not to discuss the merits of Wayne Rooney in midfield behind Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy.
It was the UK vote on the European Union she wanted to know more about, not Euro 2016 or the 500,000 supporters expected to cross the Channel from the British Isles to watch a football tournament which starts on Friday.
Last year’s atrocities by Islamic extremists have fuelled racial tensions in a country where nearly seven million voted for the far-right Front National in regional elections in December.
Immigration, the EU and border controls dominate the political agenda, occasionally ousted by the Paris floods and the ever- present threat of industrial action.
Five days from the first game, it felt as though Paris was in the grip of many things and none of them was football fever.
Soldiers were patrolling at the Sacre Coeur with automatic weapons firmly on display, eyes darting among the teeming streets.
There will be a chilling backdrop to this tournament and the high-visibility security is a constant reminder of the events of November 13 last year, on another evening of international football.
As Paris police chief Michel Cadot detailed the operation to keep the French capital safe, Ukraine’s security agency (SBU) yesterday revealed that they had arrested a French citizen trying to smuggle guns, rocket launchers and dynamite across its border with Poland late last month.
He has not been identified but the SBU claimed he was a rightwing radical plotting attacks on the transport network, tax offices, mosques and synagogues during the Euros.
French president Francois Hollande has assembled a security force of 90,000 at the tournament, including anti-terrorism experts, with support and advice from British agencies with experience from the London Olympics.
‘We can never allow ourselves to let this threat affect the way we live,’ said Hollande. ‘It is a threat which exists and I would not be in this position as president if I did not tell you very clearly that there is a threat.’
Cadot, prefect of Paris police, said procedural adjustments had been made following problems at the French Cup final between Paris Saint- Germain and Marseille, when flares were smuggled into the Stade de France and fires were started.
‘We need to improve,’ said Cadot. Two-metre highg bar-riers are already in place, wire fences set in concrete bases, forming a safety ‘ bubble’’ around the stadiums. Fans will be searched here, at an inner checkpoint and at the turnstiles.
‘We are focusing on the fanzones and stadiums but there is a strong need for general surveillance of the Paris area,’ said Cadot, who confirmed that he had also deployed an extra 200 soldiers to guard public places.
The opening game is between the hosts and Romania on Friday at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, a suburb adjoining Paris that is still scarred by a suicide bomber who blew himself up, killing one other and injuring more than 50, some seriously, having failed to gain access to the stadium for a friendly between France and Germany. On that same night in Paris, terrorists killed another 129.
Security will remain a serious concern until the final is played on July 10, but the Paris authorities have other problems, too, with theth River Seine at its highest level in 34 years anand more storms forecast. The Louvre and the D’Orsay museums have been forced to close. So hhave riverside cafes, restaurants, nearby Metro lines and road tunnels. Cruise boats have ceased to operate. The threat of industrial action also lingers with the unions using the looming Euros to their advantage, causing fuel shortages and disruption on the railways. Amid all this it is easy to miss the Euro 2016 ‘ boutiques’, or the banners and flags hailing the tournament and its official slogan ‘Le Rendez-Vous’ which is apparently designed to encapsulate the ‘communal celebration’.
The giant fanzone at the Eiffel Tower is an unfinished mess, causing chaotic diversions for pedestrians heading for the city’s most famous landmark, which presently has an enormous football dangling between its four legs.
The mood may be different in other Euro 2016 cities. In Paris there is so much more going on and they are only just getting the French Open tennis out of their system.
Football will gather its momentum this week. England checked into their base in Chantilly yesterday. Romania and Russia arrived on Sunday.
South of Paris, in Clairefontaine, France prepare under Didier Deschamps, who was captain in 1998 when a World Cup victory on home soil galvanised a nation under a banner of ‘ black-blanc-beur’ — or blacks, whites and Arabs.
Let us hope this magical sport can cast its spell once again to change minds and hearts and change the agenda, at least for a while.