On the eve of The Olympics opening ceremony, Paris is a city swamped in security. 40,000 barriers divide the French capital. Packs of police, wearing stab vests, patrol pretty cobbled streets. The river Seine is out of bounds to anyone who has not already been vetted and issued with a personal QR code. Khaki-clad soldiers, present since the 2015 terrorist attacks, linger near a canal-side boulangerie, wearing berets and clutching large guns to their chests.
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin has spent the past week justifying these measures as vigilance—not overkill. France is facing the “biggest security challenge any country has ever had to
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