BUSH IN EUROPE : Paris Security Forces Face Double Jeopardy With Summit, Bicentennial

From an underground command center at Ile de la Cite on the Seine River, not far from Notre Dame Cathedral, police will monitor transmissions from 60 hidden cameras placed at key locations in the city.

Detailed maps and photographs of every street and building in Paris are stored there in a computer system, similar to one in a Pentagon war room, that allows them to be flashed instantly on a six-foot, high-definition screen.

Above ground, 30,000 Paris police, French national police and military police will be deployed in what Interior Minister Pierre Joxe has called the “largest peacetime security force ever seen in France.”

From the air, French helicopter units and a police blimp will conduct surveillance with night-vision cameras capable of reading license tags or picking a face out of a crowd.

With at least 30 heads of state or government, including President Bush, arriving this week for the summit meeting of the seven richest industrial democracies, and with the weeklong bicentennial fete for the French Revolution, the government faces one of its most complex security challenges.

“The organization of the summit itself creates a threat,” Joxe said in a press conference outlining the security measures. “The presence of heads of state and of thousands of journalists gives a massive potential sounding board to terrorists.”

“You seldom get this many leaders together except at a funeral,” said Dr. Richard Clutterbuck, a British author of several books on terrorism.

The security problem was greatly complicated by the coincidence of two major events--the bicentennial of the storming of the Bastille and France’s hosting of the annual summit meeting of the United States, Japan, West Germany, Britain, Italy, Canada and France. Without the summit, the bicentennial would have been just another all-night party with a once-in-200-years gueule de bois (hangover).

In an attempt to deflect criticism for holding a “rich man’s summit” on the 200th anniversary of the people’s revolution, Socialist President Francois Mitterrand complicated matters even more by inviting leaders of many of the world’s poorest nations to attend the bicentennial events.

The plan backfired on Mitterrand, the first leftist leader of France since the end of World War II, as thousands of people--many attracted by popular balladeer Reynaud--attended a so-called countersummit demonstration and concert Saturday night at the Place de la Bastille.

The event gave a boost to another countersummit, entitled the Summit of the Seven Poorest Peoples of the Earth, that is being staged here beginning this Saturday to bring attention to Third World needs and urge disarmament on the part of the rich nations. Mocking the militant French national anthem words “To arms, citizens,” the left-leaning alternate summit has adopted as one of its program topics “Without arms, citizens.”

Gandhi, Bhutto Accept

Nevertheless, Third World leaders who accepted Mitterrand’s invitation include Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who has already been the target of one assassination attempt and whose mother was assassinated by Sikh gunmen; Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan; President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

In an interview with Reuters news service, Jean Reille, director of the 480-strong French version of the Secret Service, identified Gandhi, Bhutto, Mubarak and Aquino as the main “high-risk” leaders, along with Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom the Irish Republican Army has tried to kill.

Unlike other summits, which have traditionally been conducted in a single, easily secured location such as Williamsburg, Va., where the United States hosted the 1983 summit, the French version will be a movable feast of events in different parts of the city. For example, most of the leaders, each with his or her own armored vehicle and escort, will attend an opening ceremony this afternoon at the Palais de Chaillot across the river from the Eiffel Tower, luncheons and dinners in two different locations and the grand opening of the Bastille Opera tonight.

“At Tokyo (1986) and Venice (1987),” said Reille, “it was easy. We just evacuated the whole area. The heads of state never left the site of the summit, surrounded by a buffer zone.”

Friday night, all of the leaders will be together at the Place de la Concorde at midnight to watch an unusual bicentennial parade staged by French-American advertising wizard Jean-Paul Goude.

French military units have taken the precaution of placing anti-aircraft weapons on the edge of Paris to avoid aerial assaults at such events. However, plans to mount anti-aircraft cannon on one of the bridges over the Seine were scrapped after Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, a political enemy of Mitterrand, complained that they would be overly “disturbing” to the public.

So far, the main French strategy in dealing with the giant security problem has been to limit access by restricting traffic inside a large area of the Right Bank of the city that includes the presidential Elysee Palace, Place de la Concorde, Place Vendome and Place de la Madeleine. Most of the palaces or hotels where the visiting heads of state will be housed are located there, in what Paris Police Chief Pierre Verbrugghe has called the “concentration of potential targets.”

Strikes Threatened

Meanwhile, unions representing workers in the Paris subway system and taxi drivers have threatened strikes during the bicentennial celebrations. Government plans to order the subway to stay open all night during the festivities were met with a warning by subway workers that riders would not be safe from crime.

In July, a time of national vacation in France, most Parisians flock to the coast for their annual holidays. Hotel occupancy in Paris is usually low during this time, and hotel operators have been hoping for a boon from the bicentennial events.

However, the main union of French hotel workers reported Tuesday that occupancy rates were running between 50% and 60% and that many rooms were still available for the period of July 12-16. Hotel operators grumble that the stringent security measures taken by the government have limited their business.

Many Parisians who live in the wealthier neighborhoods, where most of the festivities will take place this week, have never really welcomed the annual celebrations around Bastille Day, July 14. Residents either leave the city for a holiday or close their shutters to avoid the noise.

But the preparations for this year’s events have brought even many ordinary citizens to a simmering rage. Taxi drivers have complained that security measures prevent them from reaching lucrative destinations. Central city dwellers are grumbling that they are “hostages” of the bicentennial--whose revolutionary roots they never really supported.

Delighting in all this, opposition leaders and the right-wing newspapers have had a field day at the Mitterrand government’s expense. A poll ordered by the conservative Figaro newspaper showed that 59% of Parisians were irritated by the bicentennial celebrations and that 62% thought the government had spent too much money on the affair.

Government officials such as Interior Minister Joxe have been put on the defensive.

Asked recently if the bicentennial had turned into a security nightmare, Joxe responded:

“It’s neither a nightmare nor a sweet dream. It’s a birthday party for the French Revolution.”