French officials say petty crime is down since the opening of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris last week, with police arresting 200 individuals.
Crime in Paris has been reduced since the 2024 Paris Olympics kicked off in the capital city last week, according to French officials.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said crime rates were slashed “probably” due to the increased police and gendarme presence in public areas.
“There were 200 arrests, with 180 individuals detained in jail,” the minister said, speaking outside the Paris Prefect of Police in the city’s north on Friday.
He added, “We’ve seen a 24 percent reduction in theft with violence in Paris and the surrounding suburbs” and a 10 percent decrease in auto theft.
Darmanin assured that there is no “organised plot” against France, noting police are preemptively apprehending individuals suspected of being “lone actors.”
“We are protecting all delegations — whether from Arab nations or the Israeli delegation— with meticulous care and highly committed special forces,” Darmanin said.
Roughly 1,750 police officers, gendarmes and civil security officers from 44 countries are working for the French internal security forces during the Olympics, according to the French government.
The government states online these officers will be tasked with a range of duties, including searching for explosives and using sniffer dogs and horses.
The first days of the four-year multi-sporting event were marred in chaos, as France’s major high-speed railway network SNCF was attacked causing cancelled and delayed trains ahead of the Olympics’ Opening Ceremony.
A software glitch from the previous week sent the country — and the world — into chaos, grounding planes, rendering credit cards useless, and closing hospitals for elective surgery, among other issues.
