Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that the city showed on Friday "that it can offer a safe environment to host the Olympics after an attack was thwarted at the Louvre Museum on the day when the city submitted its bid file to host the 2024 Games," according to Julien Pretot of REUTERS. A French soldier shot and wounded a man "armed with machetes and carrying two bags on his back" on Friday as he tried to enter the Paris Louvre museum "in what the government said appeared to have been a terrorist attack." Hidalgo said, "I went straight there (to the Louvre museum) with the head of Paris police and what I could see is the serenity and the efficiency of our security forces." Hidalgo does not believe Paris is the only city "concerned" by militant attacks. Hidalgo: "The threat exists in all cities across the world. It's a threat that all cities need to take seriously. This morning, our security forces showed their efficiency and again we showed how resilient Paris is. ... This capacity to react is an asset for this (Olympic bid)" (REUTERS, 2/3).
BUDAPEST OPPOSITION: In London, Andrew Byrne reported Budapest's candidacy "has run into stiff local opposition." Momentum, a "nonaligned movement of young people," has collected an estimated 80,000 signatures in a petition for a citywide referendum on the Games. If it collects 138,000 by mid-February, it can "force the city to hold the vote." The organizers hope the campaign will "bloom into political opposition" to Hungarian PM Viktor Orban's government. Momentum co-Founder Andras Fekete-Gyor said, "No one asked the Hungarian people about these Olympics and now it's time they have their say." Momentum and opposition parties said that Hungary "cannot afford the multibillion-forint spending the extravaganza demands" (FT, 2/3). REUTERS' Marton Dunai reported Orban has "backed the bid wholeheartedly," but on Monday he said that he would "wait and see" what the people of Budapest have to say. Orban said, "If the people want to decide about (the Olympics) then they will decide. The government will accept that it would make a decision in the fashion that people want it to" (REUTERS, 2/3).
