Olympic Games 2024: the government invited to anticipate "the substitution of internal security forces for private security agents"

Security is one of the main points of concern for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (OPG), in particular the capacity of the organizers to have enough private security guards at the competition sites. Beyond the willingly reassuring speeches of the government – “a large country like France is capable of meeting this private security challenge”had assured, on January 24 in the Senate, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmain -, the warning messages have been multiplying for several months on this subject.

“The primary responsibility of the State is to anticipate all possible scenarios, including the most boring”, insisted, Monday, March 20, Isabelle Rauch, the president of the commission of cultural affairs and education of the National Assembly. Before inviting the government to plan “the partial substitution of our internal security forces for private security agents”, insofar as there is “a risk that the private security sector may not be able to provide the number of agents hoped for by the Organizing Committee” of the Olympic Games (Cojop).

M^me Rauch was speaking on the occasion of the examination of the bill relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games and containing various other provisions. The Minister of the Interior, Gérarld Darmanin, not being present for the start of this examination – he is expected Tuesday evening -, she has not had an answer, at this stage, on what the government is considering, or not.

The magnitude of “capacity deficit” private security was identified by the National Assembly’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education in its report for an opinion on the Olympic bill, published on March 17: it mentions that the Cojop has not “secure to date only 4,500 [agents], according [son directeur général] Etienne Thobois »while recalling that “Cojop would need 22,000 to 33,000 private security agents”.

Mr. Thobois had been auditioned by the deputies while the results of a call for tenders in the direction of private security companies were not yet fully known.

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Ms. Rauch’s remarks echo those made by the magistrates of the Court of Auditors. In January, they urged the government to “planning for alternative scenarios” to ensure safety at competition sites and“anticipate the planning of the resources to be committed” in view of “the probable substitution, in part, of internal security forces for private security for missions incumbent on the organizer”.

The financial jurisdiction cited as ” essestial “ recourse to the operational reserves of the police, the gendarmerie and the armies. Incidentally, she recalled the financing of this security on the sites will have to be “insured by the Cojop”.

The organizers have themselves made no secret of the fact that “all scenarios are on the table”. Way of saying that, if private security cannot provide enough manpower, it may be necessary to call on the army. “If at the end of the ends of the ends, a certain number of people are missing, we will see what we can do”was content to reply, on January 24, Gérald Darmanin to the centrist senator Laurent Lafon, who asked him “when the scenario of recourse to the army will be[it] officially announced » to make up for the shortage of private security guards.

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Philippe LeCoeur

Source: Le Monde