When early proponents of hosting an unprecedented Olympics opening ceremony along the River Seine pitched the idea to the then-head of Paris police, he was dead-set against it.
'It's madness,' Didier Lallement said in 2021, according to two sources, citing the vast logistical and security challenges of throwing such an ambitious event in a city still marked by 2015 Islamist attacks that killed 130 people.
With the spectacular floating parade due to set off along the Seine on Friday night from 7.30pm South African time, President Emmanuel Macron will hope Lallement's doubts prove ill-founded.
'At the beginning, it seemed to be a crazy and not very serious idea,' Macron told foreign reporters at the Elysee palace on Monday.
'But we decided it was the right moment to deliver the crazy idea and make it real.'
