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Thwarted machete attack clouds Paris Olympic bid
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 [February 03, 2017]
By Julien Pretot
PARIS (Reuters) - The Paris bid to host
the 2024 Olympics suffered an untimely setback on Friday when a
French soldier wounded a man armed with a machete as he tried to
enter the Louvre museum.
Paris was submitting its bid to the International Olympic Committee
on Friday, a day set to culminate in the evening with a launch show
at the Eiffel Tower, the last of a series of demos that started in
the morning at a school in the Seine Saint-Denis suburban area.
Officials said the events would go ahead as planned despite the
Louvre incident, in which police said a man carrying two bags and
shouting Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) rushed at police and
soldiers before being shot near the museum's shopping mall. The man
was alive but seriously wounded after what the government said
appeared to be a terrorist attack.
"The program is unchanged," a spokesperson for Paris 2024 said.
"We were already on high alert. The sites have already been secured
with notably anti-bomb squads checking the facilities."
A news conference featuring Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and Prime
Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was scheduled at 1600 GMT.
Paris is competing with Los Angeles and Budapest to host the 2024
Olympics.
"This terrorist threat concerns all the cities in the world. We have
extremely efficient security services in our city," said Hidalgo
after the Louvre incident.
France has been hit by a series of militant Islamist attacks over
the past two years in which more than 230 people have been killed.
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A general view shows the Carrousel du Louvre and the Louvre Pyramid
as French police secure the site in Paris, France, February 3, 2017
after a French soldier shot and wounded a man armed with a machete
and carrying two bags on his back as he tried to enter the Paris
Louvre museum. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
The soldier who fired at the machete-wielding man on Friday was from
one of the patrolling groups that have become a common sight around
Paris since a state of emergency was declared across France in
November 2015. It remains in force.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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