Terror in Paris: Why Everyone is So Concerned about the Olympics

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Video originally published on July 26, 2024.

On Friday, the twenty-sixth of July, 2024, at precisely 7:30 in the evening, local time, the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games will begin. From that moment onward, through Sunday, the eleventh of August, the people of Paris, many thousands of international attendees, and people watching at home will be treated to a display of considerable athletic talent. From mainstays like gymnastics, diving, fencing, and football, to new arrivals like break-dancing and skateboarding, the 2024 Paris Olympics promise to be nothing short of spectacular.

Key Takeaways

On Friday, the twenty-sixth of July, 2024, at precisely 7:30 in the evening, local time, the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games will begin.
But in the lead-up to this year’s Games, intelligence services and security analysts across the world have made it crystal-clear: in Paris, there is potential not only for great achievements on the athletic stage, but great and terrible violence.
Per the security firm Dragonfly Intelligence, risk levels for the games were quite obviously high, even despite a planned massive police presence all over Paris and the rest of France.
Civil unrest, crime, and environmental risks are also of concern.
And all the way back on the thirty-first of May, the French Interior Minister announced that an 18-year-old from Chechnya had been arrested a bit over a week prior, on suspicion of plotting to attack football.

Key Developments

But in the lead-up to this year’s Games, intelligence services and security analysts across the world have made it crystal-clear: in Paris, there is potential not only for great achievements on the athletic stage, but great and terrible violence. A wide range of potential bad actors across the world are believed to have their sights set on the Games, raising fears of everything from terror attacks in France, to major assaults in cyberspace, to related violence around the world, timed to coincide with moments when the world’s attention will be fixed firmly on a single event. In today’s special episode of Warographics, we come to you on the eve of the Paris Olympics, to explore the very real potential for violence that surrounds them—and to dig into the hard work being done across France, and across the world, to ensure that everyone who travels to this year’s Olympics can leave as safe, and as healthy, as they arrived. Games in Turmoil. The idea that this year’s Olympic Games might be at risk of a terror threat, is not a new one. Over a year before the Games began, global security firms were already warning of severe risk of a terror attack, and world nations were already hard at work preparing their athletes and supporting Olympic delegations for the risk of emergency. Per the security firm Dragonfly Intelligence, risk levels for the games were quite obviously high, even despite a planned massive police presence all over Paris and the rest of France. Quoting from Dragonfly’s 2023 report here: “Even in the absence of specific threats, the interior minister has recently shared general concerns about the potential intent of far-right and, particularly, jihadist extremists to target the Olympics, in light of several attacks in France in recent years. Possible risks from ‘bomb-carrying’ drones are also a ‘new threat’ the minister has considered. Given these concerns, along with the hundreds of countries participating and the potential for exposure, our terrorism threat level for Paris remains severe.” Since then, concerns around the Games have only intensified. A risk assessment by S&P Global in May of 2024 highlighted the risk of not only terror attacks, particularly by way of Islamist groups, but mass protests with the potential to devolve into riots, along with sabotage attacks and attacks in the digital realm.

Strategic Implications

Per the security firm Dragonfly Intelligence, risk levels for the games were quite obviously high, even despite a planned massive police presence all over Paris and the rest of France. Quoting from Dragonfly’s 2023 report here: “Even in the absence of specific threats, the interior minister has recently shared general concerns about the potential intent of far-right and, particularly, jihadist extremists to target the Olympics, in light of several attacks in France in recent years. Possible risks from ‘bomb-carrying’ drones are also a ‘new threat’ the minister has considered. Given these concerns, along with the hundreds of countries participating and the potential for exposure, our terrorism threat level for Paris remains severe.” Since then, concerns around the Games have only intensified. A risk assessment by S&P Global in May of 2024 highlighted the risk of not only terror attacks, particularly by way of Islamist groups, but mass protests with the potential to devolve into riots, along with sabotage attacks and attacks in the digital realm. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism or ICCT, based in The Hague, wrote in a recent analysis, quote: “For decades, the Olympic Games have been a tempting target for terrorists, and the Paris Olympics are taking place at precisely the time when the Islamic State threat has risen, partly due to the group’s successful exploitation of the Gaza war.” And wrote the team overseeing the risk management platform Crisis24, quote: “Key security threats identified include terrorism, cyber threats, health risks, and drone activity. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism or ICCT, based in The Hague, wrote in a recent analysis, quote: “For decades, the Olympic Games have been a tempting target for terrorists, and the Paris Olympics are taking place at precisely the time when the Islamic State threat has risen, partly due to the group’s successful exploitation of the Gaza war.” And wrote the team overseeing the risk management platform Crisis24, quote: “Key security threats identified include terrorism, cyber threats, health risks, and drone activity. Civil unrest, crime, and environmental risks are also of concern. The political climate in France is tense [… and] the global situation, particularly conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, adds to the complexity [….]” And already, Paris has seen worrying violence in advance of the games, slated to begin—at the time of writing—in just a few days.

Risk and Uncertainty

Civil unrest, crime, and environmental risks are also of concern. The political climate in France is tense [… and] the global situation, particularly conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, adds to the complexity [….]” And already, Paris has seen worrying violence in advance of the games, slated to begin—at the time of writing—in just a few days. On July the fifteenth, a French soldier was stabbed outside a train station in Paris; the attacker would be arrested, and luckily, the soldier would be hospitalized with a non-life-threatening shoulder injury, rather than killed. The attacker’s motives are unclear, but the soldier in question was part of the Sentinelle force, a domestic security arm of the French military that will be on hand to secure this year’s Games. Two days later, on July the seventeenth, French security forces arrested a, quote, “ultra-right” sympathizer in the eastern regions of the country, on suspicion that the man was plotting a violent attack during the Games. Per the French outlet Le Parisien, the young man was from the Alsace region, and ran a Telegram group called, quote, “French Aryan division”. On July the fifteenth, a French soldier was stabbed outside a train station in Paris; the attacker would be arrested, and luckily, the soldier would be hospitalized with a non-life-threatening shoulder injury, rather than killed. The attacker’s motives are unclear, but the soldier in question was part of the Sentinelle force, a domestic security arm of the French military that will be on hand to secure this year’s Games. Two days later, on July the seventeenth, French security forces arrested a, quote, “ultra-right” sympathizer in the eastern regions of the country, on suspicion that the man was plotting a violent attack during the Games. Per the French outlet Le Parisien, the young man was from the Alsace region, and ran a Telegram group called, quote, “French Aryan division”. And all the way back on the thirty-first of May, the French Interior Minister announced that an 18-year-old from Chechnya had been arrested a bit over a week prior, on suspicion of plotting to attack football events—that’s soccer, for the Americans—in the city of Saint-Etienne, southwest of Lyon.

Outlook

And all the way back on the thirty-first of May, the French Interior Minister announced that an 18-year-old from Chechnya had been arrested a bit over a week prior, on suspicion of plotting to attack football events—that’s soccer, for the Americans—in the city of Saint-Etienne, southwest of Lyon. Per the French government’s statement on the arrest, the attacker intended, quote, “to die and become a martyr” over the course of the attack. Per that same statement, France’s Interior Minister identified a range of other potential threats, coming from every corner of the world—and perhaps most concerning at all, the Interior Minister also specified that at least at that time, concrete security threats had not yet been detected. In a situation where potential bad actors are known to have a vested interest in carrying out attacks, a lack of evidence of a concrete plot isn’t a positive; it only raises further questions around what threats may be lurking in the shadows, ready to emerge when the Games are already underway. A Range of Threats. The Olympics have long been the target of major terror plots and attacks throughout history, with a wide range of violent organizations, past and present, recognizing the unique opportunities that the Olympics present to them. Per the French government’s statement on the arrest, the attacker intended, quote, “to die and become a martyr” over the course of the attack. Per that same statement, France’s Interior Minister identified a range of other potential threats, coming from every corner of the world—and perhaps most concerning at all, the Interior Minister also specified that at least at that time, concrete security threats had not yet been detected. In a situation where potential bad actors are known to have a vested interest in carrying out attacks, a lack of evidence of a concrete plot isn’t a positive; it only raises further questions around what threats may be lurking in the shadows, ready to emerge when the Games are already underway. The Olympics have long been the target of major terror plots and attacks throughout history, with a wide range of violent organizations, past and present, recognizing the unique opportunities that the Olympics present to them.

The Threat Landscape: Understanding the Risks to the 2024 Paris Olympics

Not only are the Games well-attended by nearly every major nation on Earth, with prominent citizens of those countries sent to a common area, but the whole world is watching, meaning that whatever attacks do take place, and whatever ideological messages are wrapped into them, are even more amplified. In 1968, the Mexican government would kill over a hundred student and civilian protesters in a violent crackdown, in response to protests that tried to take advantage of the Mexico City Olympics and the attention they brought. In 1972, the Palestinian Black September Organization organized the Munich massacre, when eleven Israeli Olympic athletes and officials were kidnapped and killed. In 1976, the bombing of a Cuban airplane killed the entire Olympic fencing team from the nation, along with the rest of the 73 people onboard, in an attack by Cuban exile terrorists. In 1987, a North Korean attack on a Korean Air flight was timed to destabilize the South Korean government and instill fear in South Korea’s Olympic delegation in advance of the following year’s games; all 115 people aboard the flight would be killed. In 1996, an American domestic terrorist carried out a bombing during the Olympic Games in Atlanta, killing two and injuring over a hundred. In 2008, Beijing saw a series of bomb attacks on buses, killing two and injuring fourteen, and in 2014, an Islamist group from the Russian republic of Dagestan killed thirty-six people in a pair of suicide bombings, in advance of that year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi. In 2016, eight men were jailed in Brazil for plotting attacks on behalf of the Islamic State for that year’s Rio games, in a plot that was foiled shortly before the event began. Finally, in 2018, a computer virus called Olympic Destroyer was unleashed during the Opening Ceremony of that year’s Winter Olympics, in Pyeongchang. Olympic Destroyer was believed to have come from Russia. For this year’s games in Paris, there are anticipated threats that echo every single motive that the historical record provides. Social unrest in Paris and across France is at an unusual high, especially with the country’s recent political upheaval. Islamist and jihadist movements from branches of the Islamic State, to movements from the Russian Caucasus region, to militant organizations from sub-Saharan Africa are all a threat. The Israel-Hamas War brings risks of high-profile attacks on behalf of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad; the Russo-Ukrainian war brings fears of Russian sabotage attacks; and newly emerging technologies create a situation where even the best planning and preparation, may still leave Paris and its defenders caught off-guard. So, in the interest of providing a comprehensive outlook, we’ll go through each potential threat as we best understand them. We’ll start with civil unrest in Paris and across France, a phenomenon that’s not new, in the grand scheme, but has been more and more common over the course of the last year.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the controversy with the Olympics in Paris?

See the full article for details on What is the controversy with.

Why are people boycotting the Olympics?

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Why are people protesting the Olympics?

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What are the riots in Paris about?

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What is the immediate cause of rioting in Paris?

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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