French police swoop to thwart attempt to sabotage Paris 2024 Olympics
French police have detained a Russian man on suspicion of trying to disrupt the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which begin this week.
Prosecutors said the 40-year-old was accused of intending to “organise events likely to cause destabilisation” but did not give any further information.
It follows warnings that Russia would seek to sabotage the Olympics in retaliation for its continued exile from the Games.
The Paris 2024 opening ceremony is due to take place on Friday, although some competitions including football begin today.
Organisers have been warned to expect Russian agents to attempt to disrupt the quadrennial sporting extravaganza through cyber attacks and misinformation.
“There are clearly fake threats and we are living this for months now. That is a very deplorable situation,” Olympics chief Thomas Bach said this week.
“It’s about threats, it’s about defamation, it’s about trying to create insecurity among participants, potential spectators.
“But so far we have to say that these different attempts were not really successful. The people have realised what is going on there – for political propaganda purposes.”
Russia’s military intelligence service was accused of causing technological failures at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea with targeted computer viruses.
It followed the country’s banning from the Olympic sphere for running a state-sponsored doping programme. Russia has denied being behind the cyber attacks.
Russia remains banned from most international sport in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
The International Olympic Committee permits some Russian athletes to compete as neutrals provided they do not have any ongoing links to or show support for the state.
However, the IOC has been accused of turning a blind eye to dozens of Russian and Belarussian “neutrals” who have flouted those rules but will compete at Paris 2024.