2024-03-28 20:41:48
In order to secure this summer’s Olympic Games, France requested in January “46 foreign partners” for “nearly 2,185 reinforcements of internal security forces”. Personnel who will support the approximately 35,000 police officers and 18,000 French soldiers mobilized.
Published on: 03/28/2024 – 9:41 p.m.
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France called for reinforcements. Several foreign nations including Poland will send soldiers and police to help secure the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, AFP learned from the French government on Thursday March 28.
“Several foreign nations will strengthen us in certain critical areas, such as dog capabilities, where the needs are enormous” during the Olympics, according to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, which did not specify which nations were concerned.
In order to secure the Games in the face of threats from all sides, nearly 45,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized in Île-de-France for the unprecedented opening ceremony on the Seine on July 26. According to the latest figures, 18,000 French soldiers will also intervene during the Games, in addition to some 35,000 police and gendarmes.
Earlier Thursday, Poland, through its Minister of Defense, announced its involvement. “The Polish armed forces will join the international coalition set up by France to support the preparation and security of the 2024 Summer Olympics,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on the social network , but specifying that the mission would include “sniffer dogs” with the mission of “operations to detect explosives and fight against terrorism”.
The Polish Armed Forces will join the international coalition established by France to support the preparations and security of the 2024 Summer Olympics. A task force of our soldiers, including dog guides, will be sent to Paris. Its main goal…
— Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz (@KosiniakKamysz) March 28, 2024
“46 foreign partners” requested
“A ‘task force’ for the Olympics”, summarized the spokesperson for the Polish general staff, Joanna Klejszmit, to AFP, adding that the chief of staff of the French armies, Thierry Burkhard, was precisely carrying out Thursday a visit to Poland.
Furthermore, France requested at the beginning of January “46 foreign partners” for “nearly 2,185 reinforcements of internal security forces”, the Ministry of the Interior informed AFP. During the last Rugby World Cup, British police officers in particular came to France, and a total of 160 European officers took part in the event. Germany has already indicated that it will send police officers to the Olympics.
This involves “taking into account the spectator experience, responding to the capacity challenge of the Games and strengthening international cooperation,” said the Ministry of the Interior, specifying that Poland had offered 40 police officers and 13 dog crews.
The need for sniffer dogs to detect explosive materials in particular is very important in view of the Olympic Games. As the event approaches, “there is a little tension” on the dog market, a manager of the National Training Center for Dog Technical Units (CNFUC) of the national police, located southeast of Paris.
The Director General of Internal Security, Céline Berthon, spoke on March 5 before the Senate “terrorist organizations which target the West and without a doubt, as the event approaches, will seize the opportunity that the Olympic Games are.
The reconfigured opening ceremony
These comments came before the attack in a concert hall in the suburbs of Moscow which raised the Vigipirate system to its maximum “emergency-attack” level with 4,000 additional soldiers in addition to the 3,000 already deployed in France in the part of Operation Sentinel.
A meeting was organized Thursday at the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) with “all intelligence actors” to “draw all the consequences of the Moscow attack”, as Gérald Darmanin announced on Monday.
The Minister of the Interior thanked the DGSI agents “for their commitment, particularly in this Olympic year when our country will organize the biggest event in the world and an unprecedented opening ceremony”, he wrote on X at the end of the meeting, without saying more about its content.
With DGSI agents, who every day are fully mobilized for our security, against terrorism and foreign interference. Thank you to them for their commitment, especially in this Olympic year when our country will organize the biggest event in the world and a… pic.twitter.com/7X3XybKzyV
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) March 28, 2024
The police, gendarmerie and French intelligence “will be ready” to ensure security at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, he said again on Monday, after the Vigipirate plan was raised to its maximum level.
In October, the system had already been raised to the “emergency attack” level, after the murder of teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras by a radicalized former student.
In the name of security requirements, the unprecedented opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine was considerably reconfigured, with half as many spectators allowed as initially planned and guests screened by the authorities.
With AFP
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