“The problem is the workforce,” said 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 step on the accelerator.
Olympic organizers, he said, “had difficulty finding companies” during four rounds of bidding.
A particularly difficult deal to sell: the work of supervising the 104,000 ticketed spectators on the lower banks of the Seine during the floating boat parade of the opening ceremonies on July 26. President Emmanuel Macron said that only in the event of a clear and imminent terrorist threat would the event be modified – contained on the Place du Trocadéro facing the Eiffel Tower or moved to the Stade de France, the national stadium.
“We did not succeed in convincing the companies for the ceremony,” Paris 2024 security chief Bruno le Ray told Le Monde last week.
Some private security companies were reluctant to bid because they did not want to be held responsible for contracts they might not be able to fulfill. Even before the Olympics, the sector estimated a labor shortage of 20,000 people. Although there have been concerted efforts to train and certify more people, including through a three-week crash course funded by the French employment agency and regional administration, it may not be enough.
Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said in a television interview last week that the sector needed 8,000 additional recruits to ensure a full complement for all the Paris Olympic events.
Above all, French officials want to limit the Games’ vulnerability – to terrorism, mass crowds and other security threats. They are also wary of an embarrassment like at the 2012 London Olympics, where the failure of a private security company to honor its contract meant military troops were called in to check handbags.
Some officials dismissed their concerns, saying more than 20,000 people were newly trained or in preparation. By July, they should at least be certified to work at major events — conducting bag checks and searches, interacting with crowds, monitoring suspicious behavior and performing other basic security tasks.
“There is no failure. We have exceeded the objectives that we had set for ourselves,” declared Marc Guillaume, general administrator of the Île-de-France region, during a press conference on Thursday.
But private security specialists said that while they appreciate the government’s efforts, officials may be overestimating the number of contractors available and underestimating the number of contractors that will be needed this summer under the of the Olympic Games – not only at competition venues but also at airports, train stations and airports. department stores.
Brajeux said the Olympics posed a “problem in terms of geography and timing”.
The Games will take place at the end of July and August, a period when around a third of French security agents are traditionally on vacation. And many of the country’s approved entrepreneurs do not live in the Paris region, where the vast majority of competitions will take place. They may not want to spend weeks in the capital without their family, working long days in the oppressive heat of Paris.
Newly trained people will give a helping hand. But not all of them will be hired for the Olympics. Typically, only about 60 percent of those who complete training go on to jobs in the private security sector, according to industry estimates. Additionally, because the training is not specific to the Olympics, people certified this year can be recruited for the Games – or for construction sites or to replace people who are leaving the sector.
Brajeux said things could still be turned around. A final recruitment campaign now aims to attract last-minute candidates, particularly students. “If there is a large wave of candidates,” he said, “we have the capacity to train them. We have sufficient training facilities.
“People think you have to do karate to work in private security, but that’s not the case,” he said.
Some candidates for Olympic positions have generated security concerns of their own.
Officials have screened only a small portion of the 1 million people they want to assess before the Games begin. But at the end of March, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, 800 people had been excluded from participation, including 15 people on national security watch lists.
“There are people who wanted to register to carry the flame, to volunteer at the Olympics, and who obviously did not have good intentions,” Darmanin said.
He noted that authorities were also screening everyone with a private security certificate “as a precaution” in case some of them were asked to help at the Olympics. The Interior Ministry identified 1,392, of which 102 were on watch lists.
At the beginning of April, the total number of people excluded because they were on watch lists had increased from 117 to 161 people, according to Darmanin: 105 for radical Islam, 35 for the far right, 18 for the far left. and three for foreigners. interference. Almost all were of French nationality.
While these results could indeed reflect the “possibility of infiltration” by militant groups such as the Islamic State of Khorasan, the Afghan and Pakistani branch of the Islamic State, other dynamics could also be at play, a warned Marc Hecker, French researcher on terrorism.
“The watch lists are quite long,” he said. Some people may have stumbled upon it accidentally. Others may have been suspected or convicted of extremism-related crimes but are genuinely trying to re-enter the workforce.
Brajeux said he was not concerned about the exclusion of security contractors. “On the contrary, it is comforting,” he said, noting that less than 1% of guards were reported by authorities. He added that although 280,000 people were screened, “only about 180,000 people actually work in this sector.” Some changed jobs, others died.
In addition to French private security, the police and the army, the Paris 2024 security plan includes the support of around fifty foreign countries which should send a total of 2,500 agents and a whole range of equipment.
Darmanin said they would focus on “securing their teams, lending us anti-drug, anti-bomb or anti-gun dogs, or staying in touch with their compatriots.” He added that they could be armed.
Poland said it would send troops, including dog handlers, to focus on explosive detection and counterterrorism. In Rabat last week, he thanked Morocco for being among those who agreed to send law enforcement agents this summer, while a security committee from Qatar visited gendarmerie headquarters in Paris to plan coordination.
Although French parliamentarians criticized Qatar’s human rights record when France sent agents to help secure the 2022 FIFA World Cup, deals reached this year with Qatar, Morocco and others countries have received less public attention in France.
Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, said such agreements have been reached during major events in the past and will likely be useful in strengthening “the ability of French police forces to count individuals who speak the language of the participants. teams. »
But coordinating security for these high-risk Olympics will remain a challenge, even with international help.
“I really wouldn’t want to be the person responsible for the Olympics in France this year,” Schindler said.
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