Special forces unit among 23,000 police mobilised for Tour de France

Members of France’s special forces will be present throughout July’s 103rd edition of the Tour de France amid concerns that the world’s largest annual sporting event may be targeted by terrorists.

Interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, confirmed today that members of the elite Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) will be among 23,000 police and paramilitary personnel present on the race, which starts on 2 July at Mont St Michel.

With a heightened state of terrorist alert now extended until the Tour ends in Paris on 23 July Cazeneuve said it would be the first time the GIGN would play a role throughout the entire three weeks of the race, reports Le Parisien.

An operational command post will be put in place at the finish town of each stage, as well as a control centre within the ministry of the interior in Paris.

Personnel from the GIGN will also work alongside colleague in Andorra, Spain and Switzerland, the three foreign countries the Tour will visit this year during the Pyrenean and Alpine stages.

“We need to be extremely vigilant,” said the minister, “in the face of an enemy determined to strike us at any moment,” and “all necessary measures” would be taken to ensure the safe running of the event.

He also said that “evaluations are currently under way to examine whether we need to heighten the level of presence in specific locations.”

He added that the safety of spectators, 12 million of who watch the race in person each year, was the number-one priority.

It will be the second major security operation accompanying a major sporting event in France in as many months, with the closing week of the football’s UEFA Euro 2016 European Championship overlapping with the opening one of the Tour.

The GIGN was formed in the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972 that left 11 Israeli athletes and one German police officer dead.

It is often compared to the UK’s Special Air Service, with members of both units regularly training alongside each other.

In January last year, the GIGN led the assaults on two locations where three terrorists responsible for that month’s Charlie Hebdo attacks had taken refuge.

Four civilians were killed by one of the terrorists at a kosher supermarket in Paris. He was killed by GIGN personnel, as were two others in a separate raid.

During the attacks at several locations in Paris last November, terrorists planned to detonate a bomb inside the Stade de France as a France vs Germany football match took place.

That, as well as attacks in the Belgian capital Brussels earlier this year, mean that both countries remain under high alert, particularly when major events are taking place.

In April, the Tour of Flanders, the biggest event on the sporting calendar in Belgium, took place with an increased police presence and additional security measures including preventing spectators from taking backpacks inside fan villages at key points on the route of the race.

> Backpack ban for fans at Tour of Flanders due to security alert