This is the assessment made by the French Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, who reviewed the arrangements put in place in recent weeks: for the opening night some 75,000 police, soldiers and private security guards were mobilised.

Although there have been incidents such as a problem with the railway network on the first day or a field invasion in the men's 100m final, none were so serious as to affect the general running of the Games.

If Olympic security gold were a sport, the trials it has been through include overseeing the Olympic torch relay, an unplanned parliamentary election in July and the opening ceremony.  The success of the ceremony led to the symbolic gold medal being awarded to Alain Bauer, a university professor and criminologist who had been one of the most critical of the outdoor format.

During the two weeks of competition, the stadiums were packed, with 743,000 people flocking to the venues on a single day, 30 July. Other events, from the triathlon to the marathon, lined the streets of the capital. Around one million people lined the route of the men's and women's road cycling races on 3 and 4 August.

In addition to physical security, there was cyber security: France feared that Russia, excluded from the games because of the war in Ukraine, would push for destabilising actions.

Geopolitics is closely related to security: a suspected member of the Russian secret services was arrested on the eve of the Games. And there were fears that the Games would be affected by attacks stemming from conflict situations such as the Gaza war, threats from the Islamic State group, or France's history of home-grown Islamist and far-right terrorist plots.

Accusations of repression

The flip side of the police crackdown is accusations by social organisations of repression of homeless people, sex workers and migrants ahead of the Games, while anti-Olympic protest groups claim they have been prevented from exercising their democratic rights.

Some 45 activists from the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion were detained by police the day after the opening ceremony as they were preparing to occupy a bridge over the River Seine in central Paris.

The group "Saccage 2024", which has been organising so-called "Toxic Tours" to highlight the negative aspects of the Games, said it had been prevented from guiding a group of about 20 people to sites in northern Paris last week.