Paris on high alert for Bastille Day
About 5,000 police officers will be deployed in Paris tomorrow to ensure security for the national Bastille Day celebrations.
Police, urging revellers to leave their handbags at home as a precaution, have been ordered to show “extreme vigilance” during the annual military parade along the Champs-Elysees and other festivities for the national holiday.
After last week’s deadly terrorist bombings in London, France raised its terror alert status to the second-highest level of “red.” The move triggered measures such as raising the number of soldiers that protect sensitive sites like train stations and airports.
“The terrible terrorist threat requires mobilisation and vigilance at every instant,” French President Jacques Chirac said in an annual speech to the military on the eve of Bastille Day.
“The cowardly and dramatic attacks in London just reminded us of that – cruelly.”
Protecting the parade has been a high priority after a gunman attempted to shoot Mr Chirac as he passed by in a motorcade during the parade in 2002.
The president was not hurt and the attempted assassin was sentenced to 10 years in jail last December.
Defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie, in a newspaper interview, said the government “has taken all the qualitative and quantitative means to protect this parade.”
Referring to possible terrorism in France, she said “the risk exists” and added that the country is now in a period “that requires us to be at a maximum level of vigilance.”
The Paris police department said that officers had been instructed “to seize any object that could be of a nature to trouble the public order” during tomorrow’s celebrations.
“It is recommended that spectators avoid coming with bags,” it went on.
Police will also confine spectators to barrier-lined areas, film the crowds and limit parking, traffic and access to some Metro stations as part of the security measures.
