John J. Metzler

PARIS — France went into full Olympic countdown this week as the long-awaited Summer Games will begin in Paris with a spectacular evening parade of 85 boats and barges along the iconic Seine. This unique, creative opening ceremony, with over 10,000 athletes and dignitaries from the teams, featured a resplendent pharaonic spectacle evoking ancient Egypt as much as modern France.

The XXXIII Olympics are being held just 100 years since the 1924 Paris Olympics.

The Games arrived following years of preparations, traffic disruptions bad even by Parisian standards and a security lockdown in large parts of the city. Not surprisingly many Parisians have deliberately sarcastically left the city to avoid the crowding and traffic jams. Tourism is down too and the city is quieter than usual, even for summer.

Though the Games cost nearly $10 billion and have gone not surprisingly over budget, they have not been as costly as recent Olympiads in London. Moreover, construction was integrated into preexisting venues and buildings thus causing a lower "carbon footprint" for construction. Naturally, the Games have not been without controversy; Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris barred the Total Energy Group as a sponsor. Instead, there's the luxury goods company LVMH. And the risk of swimming in the otherwise polluted Seine was challenged when Hidalgo took a quick dip while wearing a wetsuit in a publicity-staged and paradoxical event.

Security is tight in the week preceding the waterborne opening ceremony; 45,000 police and Gendarmes sealed off both sides of the Seine with metal fencing for over 2 miles in an already dense and historic urban environment. People living in the affected zone needed special QR codes on their phones to access their own neighborhoods and homes in chic areas such as Ile St. Louis near Notre Dame. Public transport was highly restricted in large parts of Paris a week before the events.

Significantly, threats from al-Qaida terror networks or Russian militants remain very real.

Even pedestrian and bicycle movement was highly restricted. When walking through well-known streets and haunts near the Seine, there were various checkpoints needing QR codes for local movement. Municipal police, national police and the Gendarmerie, often with automatic rifles, controlled movement. Such area control evoked Paris during the COVID-19 pandemic when local lockdowns reached absurd levels. A further 18,000 military reinforced security against terrorist threats, especially rooftop security along the Seine and providing anti-drone technology. And on the Seine itself, special security speedboats were deployed with SWAT teams prepared for any eventuality.

Newly constructed spectator seating lined large swaths of the Seine and many of the historic bridges along the river for the 2.5 by 1.2 miles zone, where 10,000 athletes will stage a waterborne parade on Friday ending at the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero. About 300,000 spectators are expected to line the Seine for the spectacular event.

The Summer Games, slated between July 16 and Aug. 11, followed by the Paris Paralympics, will be hosting 24,000 athletes from around the world as well as hundreds of thousands of spectators. Among more than 30 traditional sporting competitions ranging from boxing, sailing, swimming, soccer and judo, the new sport being introduced this Olympiad by the Paris Committee is breakdancing. The athletes will compete for 329 gold medals.

Venues range from the splendid skatepark in the newly created urban park in the central Place de la Concorde, to swimming in new aquatic stadiums in St. Denis, to taekwando in the historic Grand Palais in central Paris, home to the 1900 Grand Expo and to equestrian events in the Gardens of the Palace of Versailles. While most events are in the Paris region, such as beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower in a new 13,000-seat pop-up stadium, sailing competitions will take place halfway around the world in French Polynesia!

Some 14,000 athletes will stay at the newly built Olympic Village in St. Denis. Following the Games, the Village will become affordable housing in this poorer part of suburban Paris.

In parallel, many of the larger teams will host special hospitality venues; Team USA House is located in the historic Palais Brongniart in central Paris. Korea House is in the Maison de Chimie, prestigiously situated near the Parliament. Denmark has a great place on the central Champs Elysees! And for those without pricy tickets to see the sporting events, the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a spectacular "fan zone" with continuous video and live events.

Bruno Jeudy of the weekly La Tribune Dimanche wrote editorially, "In the end, let's not forget the last step associated with Olympianism; Excellence."

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China."