Elite French tactical unit hopes for peaceful Games

Members of the French National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) guard the French 19th-century three-masted barque Belem as it sails in the bay of Marseille before landing with the Olympic torch on May 8. — AFP

AROUND 50 khaki-clad men riding atop a black armoured truck approached an abandoned office building on the outskirts of Paris one spring morning and blew open a second-storey window with an explosive device.

After clearing shards of glass from the window frame, they shuffled through the gaping hole and into the graffiti-covered building in search of hostages – in reality junior members of the Gendarmerie – held inside.