I was in Paris on the first day of the Olympics and it was like a war zone | World

I felt like I was on the edge of a war zone.

Every two minutes, heavily armed officers walked past us, chests puffed out, scanning the surroundings.

The units ranged from military police in combat gear with assault rifles slung over their shoulders, to local cops wearing aviator sunglasses and carrying handguns, to national police with tasers and a bizarre canine division.

If they saw something or someone they didn’t like, they would rush to surround the suspect and snatch his ID.

Most of them were nervous young men in tracksuits, a few looked like hardened terrorists, but the security forces were clearly operating on the principle that they should take no risks.

But this wasn’t Syria or Ukraine. I was in Paris, less than a mile from what bills itself as the world’s biggest party: the Olympic Games.

From where I was, sipping a glass of Perrier in the French sun, it all seemed a bit over the top. The people of Saint-Denis, home to the Olympic stadium and athletes’ village, seemed to want to simply get on with their lives as normal.

It’s simply impossible. Most people live in a red zone, which, like in a war-torn country, means movement is restricted. Vehicles must pass through a series of checkpoints manned by, you guessed it, armed guards.

If you wish to travel through these areas by vehicle, you will need a QR code. These are only provided by those who provide all the details requested by the French government.

The official description of the efforts to police this year’s Olympics is that the French police have occupied all the high-risk areas so that the Games can go ahead without disruption. Individual liberties are being sacrificed to protect the event.

The Paris authorities have good reason to be concerned about security. As I have already reported, the Olympic stadium and the city as a whole are the scene of serious and repeated threats from ISIS.

In addition to these threats, there are also rumors that Russia tried to derail the Games by targeting the transportation network and numerous examples of civil unrest in Paris, including the massive riots last year.

But I have to say that seeing the way France has decided to restrict the freedom of its citizens, by carrying out identity checks and flooding areas with armed police, I appreciated the British approach.

In Paris, there was no sense that citizens had a choice between no-go zones or spot checks; they simply had to submit to this crude show of force.

France must remember that telling people where to go and punishing them if they do not comply is the role of a dictatorship, not a democracy.

Some will say the risk is too high when we have lone wolves attacking presidential candidates and a list of violent threats that seems to grow longer by the day.

But the way Paris was confined is not, in my opinion, the right solution.

A state that forces its citizens to conform to its rules to avoid embarrassment while the eyes of the world are upon it is on a slippery slope to a future where freedoms and consent will no longer exist because they are “too dangerous.”