By Monica Iheakam
Team Nigeria and the rest of the Olympic family worldwide heading to France for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be guided by over 20, 000 military personnel.
According to insidethegames, the announcement was made on Tuesday by General Pierre Schill, Chief of Staff of the French army, at a press conference in Metz.
The army will be tasked with protecting the start of the Games’ opening ceremony, which will be held for the first time outside a stadium, on the River Seine as it flows through the French capital.
Around 10, 500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) will compete in 32 sports encompassing 329 events at the summer Games in Paris.
“The Olympic Games will be a very important moment for our country. The army will deploy almost 20,000 soldiers,” Schill said.
“One of their missions will be to accompany the Olympic torch. It will leave the Greek enclave of Olympia on 16 April and arrive in Marseille on 8 May to begin its journey across France”.
During the Games, “a part of the military will be mobilised for the protection of the Games in the broadest sense, accompanying the internal security forces”, Schill explained, “for the control of areas” or “for a certain number of specific operations and missions”.
“The army will set up a camp to house “several thousand soldiers” during the Games on the Reuilly esplanade, south-east of Paris,” Schill said.
The scale of security is unprecedented in France for the Olympic Games, which run from July 26 to August 11, and the Paralympics that follow.
It is also expected that tens of thousands of police officers and members of private security firms will be mobilised.