The Tour de France has ramped up security as race organisers brace themselves for a double dose of disruption, both from climate change activists and the threat of civil unrest in France.
The race director, Christian Prudhomme, said the promoters, ASO, are in “constant liaison” with the French government, following three nights of rioting across the country.
The Tour begins on Saturday in northern Spain but crosses into France on Monday and, over the next three weeks, has stage finishes in major towns and cities including Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Bourg-en-Bresse and Paris.
Prudhomme said that “depending on what happens, we will adapt if needed”. On the eve of the Tour’s Grand Départ in Bilbao, Prudhomme added: “We are in constant liaison with the state services and we are following the situation and how it has been evolving.”
While much of the Tour route is rural, the convoy is often accommodated in urban areas overnight. With further unrest reported on Friday, the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has already asked that measures stopping buses and tram services in Île-de-France at 9pm be introduced nationwide.
The 2022 Tour was disrupted repeatedly by climate change activists. In a move to guard against further incidents, two motorbikes from the French gendarmerie’s intervention brigade will ride ahead of the peloton to guard against protesters.
“Two motorbikes will work as a duo,” the gendarmerie captain, Jean Francois Prunet, told team managers. “Our goal is to be able to bring an immediate response and avoid the race being stopped.”
Matt White, sports director to Simon Yates’s Jayco AlUla team, told the Guardian: “I think you’d be pretty naive to think you’re going to get through this year’s Tour without any protests. It’s something you have to push to the back of your mind. It’s out of our control.”
Earlier this year, the environmental group Derniere Renovation said it would again be protesting at this year’s Tour.
“We will always find ways to disrupt as long as the government doesn’t enact effective actions,” a spokesperson told the RadioCycling podcast. “There will always be people willing to take action at sporting or cultural events, in a non-violent fashion. We will not stop.”
The latest threat follows multiple disruptions in British sport by climate activists Just Stop Oil and by animal rights protestors, who have targeted the Grand National, the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, the Premiership Rugby Final and the second Ashes Test, currently taking place at Lord’s.
