There will be a registration platform for free tickets for higher positions on upper banks on the Seine. An exact number was not disclosed.
The lower banks directly on the Seine, meanwhile, will be reserved for spectators with paid tickets, which are to reportedly cost up to 2,700 euros.
The opening ceremony for the 2024 Games are to take place on July 26 and for the first time the event will take place outside of the athletics stadium, Darmanin said.
Around 10,000 athletes are set to sail down the river in a flotilla of more than 100 boats to kick off the mega-event.
It will stretch from the Pont d’Austerlitz in the east of the city to the Pont d’Iéna at the Eiffel Tower.
Darmanin plans to deploy 35,000 security personnel for the ceremony.
“With its open and public nature, this ceremony will enable hundreds of thousands of people to see it for free,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo told the same press conference with Darmanin and Games chief Tony Estanguet.
With demand far outstripping supply, Paris 2024 organisers have faced a stream of criticism online and even from some athletes over the price of tickets, which first went on sale in February and March.
A second release, which began on May 11, has led to outrage over prices as high as €2,700 for the paying positions for the opening ceremony.
“I’m not even sure that my family will be able to come to see me, it’s so expensive,” Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam, a two-time Olympic heptathlon champion, told Belgian media DH recently.
