The Senate adopts by a large majority the bill on the Olympic Games with numerous security measures

by time news

A “542 days, four hours and nine minutes” of the opening ceremony, as recalled by the macronist senator Didier Rambaud (Isère), the Senate adopted at first reading, Tuesday, January 31, by an overwhelming majority the bill relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) of 2024.

With many controversial security measures, this text is a “an essential milestone in our preparation” for these competitions, where 13 million spectators are expected, welcomed the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, after the solemn ballot. In a Luxembourg Palace dominated by the Republicans (LR) and the centrists, the bill was voted with 245 votes for, 28 against – the communists and the ecologists -, and 64 abstentions coming mainly from the socialist ranks.

As during its examination in public session last week, the groups’ explanations of vote on Tuesday afternoon mainly revolved around Article 7. This allows “experiment” surveillance cameras or drones equipped with algorithms to “detect in real time” crowd movements to “to ensure the security of sporting, recreational or cultural events which (…) are particularly exposed to the risk of acts of terrorism or serious attacks on the safety of persons”. With those “intelligent, but anonymized algorithms, we can manage crowd movements in transport”had defended Amélie Oudéa-Castera, from October 12 before the senators.

Considered by the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL) as “a turning point that will contribute to defining the role that will be entrusted to these technologies in our society”, cThe so-called intelligent video surveillance system may be deployed as soon as the law comes into force and will be applicable until “June 30, 2025”. That is more than nine months after the end of the JOP (from July 26 to August 11, then from August 28 to September 8). A very wide scope, denounced by leftist groups in the Senate.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Paris 2024: senators provide video surveillance with “strong guarantees”

“A secure Trojan horse”

“Several measures presented as temporary experiments are intended to be continued beyond the Games alone”denounced the socialist senator of Saône-et-Loire, Jérôme Durain, for whom this text “is not the right legislative vehicle to make such heavy choices”.

In the process, the communist senator of Seine-Saint-Denis, Eliane Assassi, deplored a “security bias” of the government, “directly inspired by the management of the World Cups in Russia or Qatar”who does not “will only undermine a spontaneous popular momentum for a major sporting event”. denouncing “a secure Trojan horse”, who will put “France under the bell”the environmental senator Guy Benarroche for his part defended “the drift of this government towards a surveillance society”.

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