security guards, how to make up for the lack of manpower?

On July 26, 2024, the Olympic Games will open in Paris with an unprecedented ceremony: a 6-kilometre parade on the Seine. The challenge is big. The event is much more difficult to secure than the traditional parades in the closed enclosure of a stadium. The precise gauge of the number of spectators authorized to attend the show will be defined this fall. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people, who will have to be checked and searched.

According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, 35,000 members of the security forces will be mobilized that day. Ten thousand soldiers from Operation Sentinel will also be on the ground. There will be added private security guards. However, the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games is faced with recruitment difficulties in this sector where applications have been lacking for several years. In all, it will take around 22,000 agents to work during the fortnight and only a quarter have been hired after an initial call for tenders.

Camera experimentation with algorithms

Two other calls are in progress with specialized companies. Faced with the risk of a shortage of manpower, the Court of Auditors alerted the State to the need to “anticipate”, by planning as of October an additional mobilization of the army and the police to compensate for the lack. This appeal should increase the cost of the security component of the organization, estimated last May at 200 million euros by Gérald Darmanin.

To secure sporting events that will bring millions of visitors to France, the government is also relying on technology. The bill on the 2024 Olympics, adopted by Parliament in April, provides in particular for the experimentation of cameras with algorithms which must make it possible to detect crowd movements or abandonment of luggage. The organizers will also have to manage the cyberattacks that will target their computer system.

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