Games threat Paris on alert for Olympics attacks

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, met intelligence services to assess the terrorist threat to the country, after the Moscow concert hall attack claimed by Islamic State (IS) raised fresh security fears over the Paris Olympics.

- Angelique Chrisafis

One of the biggest security challenges facing the organisers of the Games in the French capital is to protect the opening ceremony on 26 July. It is planned to be an unprecedented, open-air extravaganza, which for the first time will not take place within a stadium, but will instead involve a flotilla of 94 boats carrying thousands of waving athletes down a 6km stretch of the Seine, followed by a further 80 boats carrying media and security, while an estimated 222,000 people gather along the river's edge and 200,000 more watch from buildings.

More than 45,000 police will be mobilised, with snipers on rooftops. Airspace will be shut down within a 150km radius during the ceremony, as the security services prepare for the potential threat of drone attacks.