PARIS :France's top auditors praised the organisation of last year's Paris Olympic Games on Monday but also chided the failure to forecast a 2 billion euro ($2.34 billion) security bill.

With security only vaguely projected in advance, the costs in fact came to 1.7 billion euros in temporary spending and 300 million in longer-term costs, the Cour des Comptes said in a report published on Monday.

"The security expenditure ... was high, and very long underestimated. But this is not a case of cost overruns – it is a case of deficient forecasting," it said of the enormous operation to keep athletes and spectators safe.

"The sums spent are not in themselves excessive given the political choice to stage the Games in the heart of Europe’s densest city, but it is abnormal not to anticipate the

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