Four months before the opening of the Paris Olympic Games, the Minister of the Interior, in charge of the security of the ceremony and the events, takes stock of the terrorist threat which still weighs on France.
Gérald Darmanin affirms, in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, that he devotes “half a day a day” to preparing for the Olympics.
At the forefront of its files: the risk of Islamist terrorism.
He told the JDD that out of the 20,000 people followed by French intelligence, who are not all in France, “five thousand can carry out the act in one way or another”.
And “around 800” are monitored daily, because they “are the first target in the run-up to the Games”.
“We have two significant problems with Islamism,” he continues.
Firstly, the rejuvenation of people likely to act, “with people aged 11, 12, 13 who are new to our services”.
And ex-convicts about to be released from prison.
“There are many of them because a few years ago, the prison sentences imposed for terrorism were not at all up to par,” judges the minister.
Who affirms that “very effective surveillance” has made it possible, for the moment, to avoid recurrences.
89,000 screenings
The services must also protect themselves against the risk of infiltration with the aim of committing an attack “from the inside”.
All the personnel of the Ministry of the Interior have been scrutinized, “several times”, assures Darmanin, and “more than fifteen people” have left their service since the attack by Mickaël Harpon at the police headquarters of Paris.
On October 3, 2019, this radicalized computer scientist, stationed at the Intelligence Directorate (DRPP), killed four of his colleagues and injured two others, before being shot dead within the prefecture itself, in the heart of Paris.
As for the volunteers, the thousands of private security agents who will be mobilized during the Games, the ministry has carried out 89,000 screenings so far, out of the million needed.
They led, as we have known since Tuesday, to the exclusion of 280 profiles who wanted to be volunteers, torch bearers or work on these Paris Games.
Ultra-right and ultra-left also monitored
Among them, six S files and 25 people subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF).
The minister told the Sunday weekly that everything will be ready.
The National Service for Administrative Security Investigations (SNEAS), the body responsible for these controls, has only 200 agents.
“With an increase in numbers, and the reinforcement of artificial intelligence!
", it is possible to carry out the mission successfully, believes Gérald Darmanin.
“And in any case,” he adds, “if the screenings are not done, there will be no access badge.”
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If the Islamist threat is preponderant, Gérald Darmanin does not want to minimize the political threat represented by the ultra movements, even if he seems to doubt whether they will take action.
Within the ultra-right, there are “the
accelerationists
who want to hasten the racial war to counter what they call the great replacement, and the supremacists.
I do not take them lightly because they have a passion for firearms and we have arrested extremely armed people,” he said.
And what about the ultra-left?
Groups can, through violent actions, “target capitalism” or projects contrary to a radical environmentalist vision.
On this side of political activism, the minister lists according to the JDD the possibilities of sabotage, of companies or installations, demonstrations of force, or “people who stick their hands to the ground when the flame passes” .
A demonstration that would only harm activists, unlike an attack.