Paris prepares for Olympics opening ceremony spectacle along River Seine

City to stage a ‘sporting Armada’ as games curtain-raiser, the first to take place outside a stadium

It is billed as the biggest open-air show on Earth – a spectacle so ambitious it will shut down a city centre and its airspace, mobilise 45,000 police and several army units and has taken two years to rehearse in secret.

When the Paris Olympics opening ceremony begins on Friday night, it will be the first time the theatrical curtain-raiser for the world’s biggest sporting event has taken place outside a stadium.