So much for the Conflict Games: French security forces award themselves gold

A security patrol in front of the Louvre before the opening ceremony. Fears of major disruption have been unfounded. Photograph: John Locher/Reuters

It was on Marseille’s Corniche John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the coastal road that slings around France’s second city, that Gérald Darmanin metaphorically staged his own medal ceremony. A peculiar choice of location for this particular moment of national back-slapping given the Kennedy history, but France’s interior minister could be excused for getting a little giddy.

“It all started here, with the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseille,” Darmanin told a lineup of gendarmes. “It’s a beautiful gold medal for the security forces.”