ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Olympic games officially begin in Paris tomorrow. For the first time in the modern era, the opening ceremony will not be held in a stadium. The games will kick off with a parade through the heart of Paris in boats along the river Seine. As NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, this year's ceremony is being heralded as unique and creative, and it's also a security nightmare.
SHAPIRO: The Olympic games officially begin in Paris tomorrow. For the first time in the modern era, the opening ceremony will not be held in a stadium. The games will kick off with a parade through the heart of Paris in boats along the river Seine. As NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, this year's ceremony is being heralded as unique and creative, and it's also a security nightmare.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to the international media this week about the opening ceremony, which will take place along a nearly four-mile stretch of the Seine River and include some 10,000 athletes and 3,000 performers in a flotilla of more than a hundred boats.
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PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: (Through interpreter) I can tell you that at the very beginning, it seemed to be a crazy and not very serious idea. But we decided that it was the right moment to deliver this crazy idea and to make it real.
BEARDSLEY: Macron said Friday evening, Paris will become an open air theater. The ceremony, which has been a tightly guarded secret, sprung from the imaginations of five creative figures - a historian, a screenplay writer, an actor, a theater and opera director and a novelist, French Moroccan writer Leila Slimani, who spoke to NPR.
LEILA SLIMANI: For me, I think, as a novelist, the first thing I tried to bring is imagination. Sky is the limit.
BEARDSLEY: Slimani says their forces were complimentary. The team traveled the Seine by boat to envision their creation unfolding in 12 different scenes performed along the water, its river banks and the buildings and monuments. As the only immigrant, she brought a different viewpoint.
SLIMANI: The fact that France is not only the country of French people but it's also a country you can dream of when you live in another place.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Olympic games, welcome back to Greece.
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BEARDSLEY: Reviewing past opening ceremonies in other cities, Slimani says the group appreciated Athens' humility and London's humor. She says France will talk about freedom, equality and fraternity, universal values embodied by the French Revolution.
SLIMANI: But at the same time, we didn't want France to appear arrogant and to appear like we are looking at the rest of the world with our big values. We needed also to try to make fun of ourselves and have a certain division.
BEARDSLEY: Slimani says they want Parisians, tourists and TV viewers around the globe to discover the ceremony together like opening a present. There are rumors that Celine Dion may take part and French Malian singer Aya Nakamura, the bestselling French artist on the planet.
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AYA NAKAMURA: (Singing in French).
BEARDSLEY: But an unprecedented ceremony requires unprecedented security, says criminologist Alain Bauer. He says he tried to talk President Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo out of it.
ALAIN BAUER: It's quasi-impossible. First, it's open air, and you have the drone issue, which is new. Second, it's very long because it's long in miles and it's long in time. You don't run on the river. You go very slowly.
BEARDSLEY: Some 15,000 French soldiers are also helping secure the city Friday. Colonel Remy Chaubaud's engineering regiment is in charge of the zone where the athletes and performers board the boats.
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REMY CHAUBAUD: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "We are facing a huge security challenge," he says, "from the air with drones or possible shooters on rooftops, all the usual threats on the ground and also threats on the river, like a boat or jet ski incursion or even from under the water, which is why we're using sonar." Chaubaud says the challenge is to integrate all the different security methods. Paris has been blocked off and carved up with metal barricades and police checkpoints. The banks of the Seine are almost impenetrable, but I managed to get through with my press badge.
I'm down on the Seine River two days before the Olympic ceremony, and it's absolutely an incredible scene. The grandstands are up on the river banks. The giant screens are up, and they're practicing for the big night.
Cyclists are doing stunts on skateboard ramps installed on three floating platforms decorated like gardens. Helicopters hover overhead.
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BEARDSLEY: On a different night this week, we catch a glimpse of another practice session along the Seine - lithe dancers moving in unison on a Paris rooftop accompanied by trumpeters on another, just a part of the Olympic present to be unwrapped Friday along the river Seine. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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