“worrying deficit”. “Measures too late”… While it has already been several months since the ability of the organizers of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) of 2024 – and of the public authorities – to mobilize enough private security agents for the sites of future competitions has been questioned, the deputies draw , again, the alarm signal.
“Eighteen months from the Games, the private security sector is facing a worrying capacity deficit”emphasizes the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education in its report for opinion on the bill “relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games and containing various other provisions”published Friday, March 17.
The Games Organizing Committee (Cojop) did not “secure to date only 4,500 [agents] according to Etienne Thobois”, its Director General, notes the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education in its opinion, while recalling that “the Cojop would need 22,000 to 33,000 private security agents according to the Court of Auditors”. Mr. Thobois was auditioned by the deputies while the results of a call for tenders in the direction of private security companies were not yet fully known.
The government, which, for its part, estimates that it will be necessary to mobilize some 22,000 agents each day for the duration of the event, has nevertheless been operating, for several months now, various levers to reach this figure. But, for the Members of the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education, the “measures aimed at increasing the attractiveness of the profession turned out to be too late for the industry to be able to provide the necessary personnel during the Games”. Under pressure from the government, security companies notably increased remuneration on January 1 by 7.5%, after + 3.5% in 2022.
“All the scenarios are on the table”
During her hearing by the deputies on March 1, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Minister for Sports and the JOP, had detailed the various actions undertaken in order to boost or support the necessary recruitments: call for people with the title to exercise this profession, but who no longer exercise it; implementation of a simplified event security title aimed at job seekers and students, with training reduced to 106 hours instead of the usual 175 hours.
Asked during the past week, the management of the Cojop did not wish to speak on the subject, referring to a communication in the coming days. A few weeks ago she had promised “maximum visibility by the first semester”.
The organizers however did not conceal that “all scenarios are on the table”. Translation: 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 answer, on January 24, Gérald. Darmanin, the interior minister, to the centrist senator Laurent Lafon who asked him “when the scenario of the use of the army will be officially announced” to replace a shortage of private security guards.
Our selection of articles on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games