Paris city hall has said that a computer and a USB memory stick stolen from one of its engineers on a train at the Gare du Nord did not, as first feared, contain police security plans for the Paris Olympic Games.
A city hall worker contacted police on Monday night to say his bag was stolen on a train after he put it in a luggage compartment above his seat at the station in the French capital.
Media initially reported that the computer equipment in the bag contained sensitive data on municipal police plans for securing this summer’s Olympic Games.
In a statement on Wednesday, Paris city hall said: “Initial checks have allowed us to establish that the staff member was not in possession of any information relating to the organisation and deployment of police during the Olympics and Paralympics”.
The statement said the material was in fact notes for internal use related to the man’s work in the department of public roads and traffic.
Security measures were taken to cut off all access to the Paris city hall system from the device. An internal investigation is under way at city hall.
The Paris prosecutor’s office told France Info TV that the professional USB memory stick contained notes about road traffic in Paris during the Olympics and not sensitive security data.
Two thousand municipal police officers and about 35,000 security personnel will be deployed during the Games, which run from 26 July to 11 August.
Paris has been the scene of large-scale attacks, such as at the Bataclan in 2015 when Islamist extremists invaded the music hall and shot at cafe terraces, killing 130 people.
