Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced on Monday that 13 individuals, including several who had engaged in drug offenses and a suspected Islamist, had been turned down by French security authorities to participate in the Olympic torch relay in Paris.

After being selected for the 80-day relay across France, which starts in Marseille on May 8 and ends on July 26 to mark the start of the Paris Games, almost 12,000 participants have undergone screening.

At a news conference, Darmanin informed reporters, "The vetting process has taken place and resulted in 13 incompatibility notices, meaning a very low rate of 0.10 percent."

He said 10 were for people with "substantial criminal records, mostly for drugs offences", while three others were rejected by the intelligence services for "radical Islam, foreign interference, or links to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict."

The rejections "underline the efficiency of the vetting process and perhaps the plans of some people to disrupt the torch relay from the inside," he said.

The flame will be carried inside a "security bubble" of 100 travelling
security forces, comprising motorbike teams, rapid-response forces, anti-drone specialists and anti-terror police.

Darmanin likened the relay through 400 towns to the annual Tour de France bicycle race but "with more originality and difficulties."

He said security forces were on permanent alert for potential terror threats but remained principally concerned by the risk of environmental groups seeking to use the event for publicity.

Noting a video circulating online called "how to extinguish the Olympic flame," he added that activist groups were "a very significant threat and we need to take it seriously."

On May 8, the torch will be lighted in Olympia, Greece, then transported by boat to Marseille in southern France. The ship, the Belum, is a three-masted, 19th-century French tall ship.

Although some media sources claim it will end atop the Eiffel Tower, the organizers are keeping its final resting place a secret for the length of the Games.

Protesters have previously targeted Olympic relays.

2008 saw demonstrators criticizing China's human rights record stage a demonstration against the Beijing Games, forcing French police to repeatedly put out the flame and end the relay in Paris.

End//voice7news.tv