Paris.-Paris is on lockdown, with Parisians lost and overwhelmed by street restrictions due to the Olympic Games, QR codes required to travel that never arrive, and tourists who don’t understand where they can go or how.
A few days before the inauguration ceremony, the capital has been divided into grey and red zones, each with its own traffic and safety rules. Chaos, with the avenues fenced off. Vehicles are not allowed to circulate. Only taxis, the Metro and bicycles are allowed.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is sorry to add some cheer to the Olympic Games, which Parisians hate and are forcing them to change their lifestyle and work habits. “Teleworking” is mandatory from July 18 until the end of the Paralympic Games in September.
Between poster campaigns in the subway and letters sent to mailboxes in buildings, the authorities had tried everything to avoid chaos. They failed.
The name of the online platform, however, set the tone: “Anticipate the Games.” But nothing worked. On the first day of these famous red and grey zones, set up near the Olympic sites and the Seine, where the opening ceremony will take place, police, gendarmes and soldiers are deployed and armed, as if a major crisis were about to break out, rather than a popular celebration.
Since 5 a.m. on Thursday, police have been in place to control the mandatory passes to enter the grey zone, this internal perimeter for security and the fight against terrorism (Silt). On the banks of the Seine, this movement should guarantee the safety of 326,000 spectators, athletes and local residents on July 26 and will be lifted later.
For eight days, regardless of the mode of travel (pedestrian, motorcyclist, cyclist or driver), pedestrians must present a pass or QR code, issued by the Paris police headquarters and obtained after an administrative investigation. A much more restrictive system than the red zone, where only motorists must comply with this obligation.
Getting the pass is another drama, affected this Friday by the cyber blackout. The document to read and feel included is like understanding instructions for a trip to the Moon.
The system sometimes registers you and you have to wait for the supervision of the security services to be accepted. If the system does not accept you or you are rejected, it will inevitably prevent the personnel in dire need from reaching the hospital, cleaning the museums, caring for the elderly or carrying out their essential dialysis. People are desperate but the only interlocutor is the computer.
Barriers have been erected on the busy axis of Rue de Rivoli, Avenue Kleber, and the Champs-Elysées.
A few hours on the streets of Paris are enough to understand that these rules literally make the inhabitants dizzy. Even more so for tourists, who, many of them, discover them on the same day.
As they approach the barriers on the other side of the road, which mark the perimeter of the grey zone, cyclists screech to a halt on their rental bikes.
“Not this way,” the police tell the disoriented American. But there is another problem: since the security system is gigantic, they have brought in police from all over France, who do not know Paris.
One of the biggest traffic jams is at the intersection of the rue du Louvre and the rue de Rivoli. This important cycle route, which leads to the Champs-Élysées, is blocked. Dozens of cyclists are once again encountering barriers manned by the police. The Place de la Concorde is closed and is the access to the Champs-Élysées.
“The Notre Dame Bridge!” shouts one of the soldiers. In this Paris divided in two by a grey zone, this bridge and the Sully bridge connect the two banks without a pass, without a QR code. Parisians are therefore forced to make a huge exodus towards these two structures in order to be able to move around and cross the zone. They walk for kilometres, in a city that is not well prepared for the disabled or those with reduced mobility.
The real estate sector is at a standstill. No one is buying or selling apartments or houses because of the Olympics and the country’s political crisis. A real estate manager forgot to ask for a QR code. “It’s unlikely that you’ll get it today,” the gendarme warns him. “A lady who asked for it yesterday hasn’t gotten it yet,” he tells him.
“I’m going to the doctor,” says a pensioner near them. “Does it have a QR code?” asks a gendarme. “No, the doctor didn’t tell me,” replies the man, stupefied. A young intern, who works on the rue du Bac, presents her internship agreement as her only certificate. “Is it still working?” she asks. The gendarme, who comes from the Ardennes, lets her through with a smile.
For this first day, police were given instructions to be tolerant. “We were told that today we had to be polite and courteous. We are not here to increase tension. The goal is for everything to go well,” says a police officer from Correze.
The Olympics were supposed to be President Emmanuel Macron’s crowning moment. Instead, he and the Olympics have been, and continue to be, plagued by horrendous headlines and huge disruptions for Parisians. France Insoumise, which won the legislative election on the New Popular Bloc, taunts Macron: “It will be the ‘Olympics for the Rich.’”
The obstacles are so numerous that Paris is in a state of rage. From the 44,000 two-and-a-half-metre-high steel fences erected to separate the Olympic zones from the rest of the city, forcing pedestrians to walk hundreds of metres just to cross a street.
The “Olympic lanes”, painted white and closed to traffic, even bicycles, take athletes, officials and sponsors from one place to another while the rest of the city is in perpetual traffic jam. A journey across the city from the Place de la Bastille to the Arc de Triomphe can take an hour and a half.
Both retailers and hoteliers are certain that when they benefit from the promising Olympic bonanza, they will lose their profits compared to a normal year. And this includes, in the face of the terrorist threat, the kilometres of workers excluded from the jobs needed by the security services.
Two American cyclists realize in a panic that they have only 30 minutes left to catch the 10:04 a.m. train to Montparnasse. “Oh, oh, oh,” they exclaim before turning around. They are not allowed to pass.
The vehicles are not left out. In this case, the one who is turned away is a fruit delivery man from the neighbouring hotel. There, a taxi in a hurry appears. “It’s closed!” repeats the driver, turning towards the next traffic jam.Clarín.
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2024-07-22 19:20:03
