December 2, 2015
Huge Paris security operation as world leaders arrive for climate change conference
Prince Charles among VIPs who will join nearly 150 world leaders
9:00AM GMT 29 Nov 2015
David Cameron and Prince Charles are among nearly 150 world leaders due in Paris to attend a conference on climate change opening on Monday amid intense security two weeks after France’s worst terror attacks.
Major roads into the French capital will be closed on Sunday and Monday. About 2,800 police and soldiers are guarding the hermetically sealed conference venue near Le Bourget airport, north of Paris. Another 6,300 officers are deployed in the city, still reeling from the coordinated onslaught by suicide bombers on restaurants, a concert hall and the national football stadium in which 130 people died.
Prince Charles arrives today and will address the opening session of the two-week UN conference. He is expected to repeat his warning that climate change is partly responsible for conflicts such as Syria. Many other world leaders are also staying in Paris for what will be the largest climate gathering of heads of state and government ever, despite security concerns.
Prince Charles will also venture into central Paris tomorrow to visit the august academic institution, the Institut de France, on the left bank of the Seine, where he will receive the Prix François Rabelais for his commitment to organic farming and environmental protection.
He will stay in Paris until Tuesday when he will speak at a session on forests.
In all, more than 40,000 people are expected to attend the two-week conference, including scientists, exhibitors and journalists.
With France still under a state of emergency,
the authorities have cancelled two major rallies that had been planned for today and December 12, because of security fears. At least 24 climate activists have been placed under house arrest, using the emergency powers invoked after the Paris attacks.
Organisers now plan to create a two-kilometre (1.2-mile) human chain by linking hands along the route of the cancelled march in central Paris today. They will break the chain as they pass the Bataclan concert hall, the scene of the worst attack, which claimed 90 lives, as a mark of respect to the victims.
