A “real challenge”. This is how the public authorities describe their mobilization so that the private security sector has sufficient staff to ensure surveillance of the sites of the Olympic and Paralympic competitions in France in the summer of 2024. But, if the means committed since several months to attract and train candidates are important, they should not be enough.
While an interministerial committee dedicated to the security of the Olympic and Paralympic Games meets on Friday October 20 in Matignon, this is what the government implicitly admits in a document annexed to the finance bill for 2024. “The effects of the actions implemented (…) are perceptible, but at an insufficient level at this stage to reach the target of 20,000 training entries” for private security professions “by May 2024”is written in a report relating to public funding for sport.
“The various pools activated would make it possible to secure between 14,000 and 16,000 training entries out of the 20,000 projected between now and the Games,” adds the document. This figure of 20,000 corresponds to the contribution deemed necessary to consolidate a private security sector with a shortage of manpower even before the Games.
Securing the Olympic sites, which is the responsibility of the Games Organizing Committee (Cojop), is expected to mobilize 17,000 private security agents per day on average nationally – 22,000 at the peak of the event.
20,000 training places
In Ile-de-France, where the majority of the Games sites will be located, “we have hired 6,200 people and 6,700 are in training, who may not 100% move from training to employment”explained, at the beginning of September, the prefect of the region, Marc Guillaume, while recalling the objective: “train and hire 15,000 people”.
It was on job seekers that the public authorities initially focused their efforts. A plan of “canvassing” was launched in September 2022 in consultation with Pôle emploi. To support this, the State has purchased 20,000 training places for security professions (15,000 in 2023, 5,000 for the first half of 2024).
Two levels of training are offered: over five weeks for those who plan to make it their long-term career; over three weeks for those who are only considering it during the Games, the government having put in place a temporary event security agent card.
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