“The problem is the workforce,” stated Pierre Brajeux, president of the French Federation of Private Security. “Will we have enough guards to properly ensure the security of the Games? We need to hit the accelerator.”
The Olympics organizers, he stated, “have struggled to find companies” by way of 4 rounds of contract bidding.
An particularly powerful promote: the job of managing the 104,000 ticketed spectators on the decrease banks of the Seine through the floating boat parade of the July 26 Opening Ceremonies. President Emmanuel Macron has stated that solely within the case of a transparent and imminent terrorist risk would the occasion be modified — contained within the Trocadero Square going through the Eiffel Tower or moved to the Stade de France, the nationwide stadium.
“We didn’t manage to convince the companies for the ceremony,” Paris 2024 safety chief Bruno le Ray advised Le Monde this previous week.
Some personal safety corporations have been reluctant to bid as a result of they didn’t need to be chargeable for contracts they won’t be capable of fulfill. Even earlier than the Olympics, the sector assessed that it was coping with a labor scarcity of 20,000 folks. Although there was a concerted push to get extra folks educated and authorized, together with by way of an accelerated three-week course funded by France’s unemployment company and the regional administration, it is probably not sufficient.
Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra stated in a tv interview this previous week that the sector wanted 8,000 extra recruits to make sure full staffing for all of the Olympics occasions in Paris.
Above all, French officers need to restrict the vulnerability of the Games — to terrorism, crowd crushes and different safety threats. They are additionally cautious of a humiliation like through the London 2012 Olympics, when a personal safety firm’s failure to ship on its contract meant that navy troops needed to be referred to as in to examine purses.
Some officers have shrugged off issues, saying that greater than 20,000 individuals are newly educated or within the pipeline. By July, they need to at the least be licensed to work at main occasions — doing bag checks and pat-downs, interacting with crowds, monitoring for suspicious conduct and performing different fundamental safety work.
“There is no failure. We have surpassed the goals that we had set for ourselves,” Marc Guillaume, the chief administrator for the Île-de-France area, stated at a information convention on Thursday.
But personal safety specialists stated that whereas they recognize the federal government’s efforts, officers could also be overestimating the variety of contractors obtainable and underestimating what number of contractors might be wanted this summer season in reference to the Olympics — not simply at competitors websites however at airports, practice stations and department shops.
Brajeux stated the Olympics pose a “problem in terms of geography and of timing.”
The Games will happen in late July and August, when a couple of third of French safety contractors are historically on trip. And most of the nation’s licensed contractors don’t reside within the Paris area, the place the overwhelming majority of competitions might be held. They is probably not eager to spend weeks within the capital with out their households, working lengthy shifts within the oppressive Paris warmth.
The newly educated folks will present a lift. But they gained’t all be employed for the Olympics. Typically, solely about 60 % of those that undergo coaching go on to take personal safety jobs, in response to trade estimates. Moreover, as a result of the coaching isn’t Olympics-specific, folks getting licensed this 12 months could also be recruited for the Games — or for building websites or to switch folks leaving the sector.
Brajeux stated issues might nonetheless be circled. A last recruitment push now goals to draw last-minute candidates, together with college students. “If there is a big wave of candidates,” he stated, “we have the capacity to train them. We have enough training facilities.”
“People think one needs to do karate to work in private security, but that’s not the case,” he stated.
Some candidates for Olympics roles have themselves generated safety issues.
Officials have screened solely a small portion of the 1 million folks they need to assess earlier than the beginning of the Games. But as of late March, in response to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, 800 had been excluded from participation, together with 15 individuals who have been on nationwide safety watch lists.
“There are people who wanted to register to carry the flame, be volunteers at the Olympics, and who clearly did not have good intentions,” Darmanin stated.
He famous that officers have been additionally screening everybody holding personal safety certification “out of precaution,” in case a few of them may be requested to assist on the Olympics. The Interior Ministry flagged 1,392 of them, together with 102 who have been on watch lists.
By early April, the full variety of folks excluded as a result of they have been on watch lists appeared to have risen from 117 to 161 folks, in response to Darmanin: 105 for radical Islam, 35 for the acute proper, 18 from the acute left and three for overseas interference. Almost all have been French nationals.
While these findings might certainly mirror the “possibility of an infiltration” by militant teams resembling Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghanistan and Pakistan arm of the Islamic State, different dynamics may additionally be at play, cautioned Marc Hecker, a French terrorism researcher.
“The watch lists are pretty big,” he stated. Some folks could have ended up on them by accident. Others could have in some unspecified time in the future been suspected or convicted of extremism-related crimes however are genuinely attempting to reintegrate into the job market.
Brajeux stated he was not involved in regards to the exclusion of the safety contractors. “On the contrary, it’s comforting,” he stated, noting that fewer than 1 % of guards have been flagged by the authorities. He added that though 280,000 folks have been screened, “only around 180,000 people really work in this sector. Some have changed profession, others died.”
In addition to French personal safety, the police and the navy, the Paris 2024 safety plan contains assist from about 50 overseas international locations who’re anticipated to ship a mixed 2,500 officers and an array of apparatus.
Darmanin stated they’ll concentrate on “securing their teams, lending us anti-drug, anti-bomb or anti-weapon dogs, or being in touch with their compatriots.” He added that they could be armed.
Poland stated it will be sending troopers, together with canine handlers, targeted on explosives detection and counterterrorism. In Rabat this previous week, he thanked Morocco for being amongst these to comply with ship legislation enforcement officers this summer season, whereas a safety committee from Qatar visited the gendarmerie headquarters in Paris to plan coordination.
Although French parliamentarians voiced criticism of Qatar’s human rights file when France despatched officers to assist safe the 2022 Soccer World Cup there, this 12 months’s preparations with Qatar, Morocco and different nations have prompted much less public scrutiny in France.
Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, stated such agreements have been in place throughout main occasions prior to now, and they’re more likely to be helpful in boosting French police forces’ “capacity with individuals who speak the language of participating teams.”
But coordinating safety for this high-risk Olympic Games will stay a problem, even with worldwide assist.
“I really wouldn’t want to be the person responsible for the Olympics in France this year,” Schindler stated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2024/04/27/paris-olympics-2024-security-contractors/