Paris-2024: effectiveness of anti-drone shields raises doubts – 05/04/2024 – Sport

Four months before the Olympic Games, doubts continue to accumulate about the defense system that should protect Paris from a hypothetical attack perpetrated by a cloud of drones during the opening ceremony, with 300,000 spectators on the banks of the Seine.

The specter of an attack has worried all the countries organizing the Games for more than half a century. France declared the maximum alert level after the bloody March 22 attack in Moscow, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

France has recorded 22 attacks since 2015 and, despite the persistent threat, President Emmanuel Macron assured on Thursday (4) that the open-air opening ceremony on the Seine remained the “privileged” plan, but that he foresees alternatives.

Although officially everything is fine, uncertainty hangs over the anti-drone shield for the Olympic meeting, scheduled in Paris from July 26 to August 11, especially after the exclusion of the publication of a delicate parliamentary report on the matter.

“It’s irritating that this has come to light, but yes, unfortunately, contrary to the official line, things are not really working as we would like,” a high-level security source told AFP, who requested anonymity.

In May 2023, during the signing of the security protocol for the Olympic Games, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, considered drones as “the main [ameaça] without a doubt it should be feared.”

With an estimated fleet of nearly three million drones in private hands in France, authorities are striving to prevent these unmanned aerial vehicles from flying over Olympic sites without authorization.

The military response during the Games was entrusted in April 2022 to defense and security industry groups Thales and CS Group, but the delivery of six systems dubbed “Parade”, scheduled for June 2023, was delayed by several months.

This delay led the Senate to begin an information mission at the end of 2023. The president of this commission, Cédric Perrin, told defense journalists in December that the fight against drones “does not [estava] at the level.”

And a large-scale exercise organized by the air army in mid-March to test the first “Parade” systems at Villacoublay, southwest of Paris, also failed to convince all participants.

Plan B?

Senators announced on March 20 that their report would finally not be made public. “It’s a matter of national security” and publishing it “could be dangerous”, explains a source close to the army.

Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu closed the commission’s closed-door hearings on April 2, but shortly before said that they had asked Thales for improvements to respond “precisely to all requests” from the charge.

Contacted by AFP, Thales did not comment.

For Alain Bauer, professor of Criminology, “no system is as effective as expected”, as demonstrated by “what happens in Ukraine almost daily”. “Although the systems are undoubtedly among the best in the world, several drones are able to infiltrate,” he adds.

The air army recently purchased several “Bassalt” anti-drone systems, manufactured by Hologarde —a subsidiary of the Paris Airports (ADP) group— to detect and intercept drones within a radius of ten kilometers.

With the “Bassalt”, the army could “equip all Olympic Games venues”, including the opening ceremony, a kind of anti-drone Plan B, according to the security source.

“It’s as if you had a defective or bad car and, in your garage, you also had one that works. Which one would you go on vacation with? I’m sure,” adds a senior official.