2023-11-22 21:25:44
With more than 300,000 candidates, Cojop is spoiled for choice for its volunteers. kovop58 / stock.adobe.com
At the call of five organizations, some of the 45,000 volunteers could walk out on D-Day and disrupt the holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The Trojan horse of the Olympic Games. Fomented by five collectives opposed to the holding of the global sporting event, this core plan is entitled “No volunteers for the 2024 JOPs : a tutorial to spoil their hidden work campaign“. Publicly revealed last spring in a column published by Basta, the strategy is based on“entrism”, an infiltration technique well known to Trotskyists in the 1920s. The idea? Dynamize the organization of the Games from within. For this, the signatory collectives then called on their activists to apply to join the ranks of the 45,000 volunteers, these little volunteer hands who “will play a key role in the success of the Paris 2024 Games“, present the event website. And call it quits on D-day.
“How can a mega sporting event that is so lucrative for its organizers and sponsors rely on so many volunteers and civic service?”, question the organizations in their forum, co-signed by the CGT member Gérard Filoche and the elected ecologist from the Ile-de-France region Annie Lahmer. For them, “the volunteers’ missions during the event [étant] of work, the presumption of employment is total. So for “prevent this antisocial company from benefiting from the free labor of thousands of people“, the activists intend to undermine the ground. “We therefore call on anyone to apply», then the choice of not going there, going on strike and asking to be paid, going to the industrial tribunal, going on a “zealous strike” or even publicly denouncing the situation on site. The plan is to advance masked, pass mandatory training and police investigations, and give in at the last moment. An email address has even been created to advise anyone who encounters difficulty registering and also to coordinate the actions of false volunteers.
And the preparations seem to be progressing well. “We have had a lot of feedback from people who came forward “involuntarily”, and not necessarily activists, says Arthur, member of the Saccage 2024 collective at Le Figaro. Currently, we have a candidate validated by the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympics (Cojop) in almost all key positions“. If compulsory training and police investigations will certainly scour a large part of the false volunteers, “the action is already a media success: light has been shed on this hidden work», smiles this regular at anti-Olympic demonstrations.
The threat of a fifth column at the heart of the army of 45,000 volunteers does not seem to worry the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. “The exercise of volunteering missions at the Paris 2024 Games will be carried out within an extremely precise and supervised framework”, reassures Alexandre Morenon-Condé, head of the Paris 2024 volunteer program. With more than 300,000 candidates, Cojop is spoiled for choice. The profiles recommended by sports federations will also be selected as a priority, to avoid unpleasant surprises as much as possible. Above all, what is planneda team of volunteers who can be mobilized in the event of withdrawal, who can, if necessary, come and carry out missions during the Games“. And the “accredited volunteers will be subject to an administrative investigation by the authorized state services”adds Alexandre Morenon-Conde.
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“Paying them would represent 1% of the budget”
A serenity which does not prevent criticism. “Thousands of people who participate in a gigantic profit machine, without being an employee but with a hierarchy to respect, it is a diversion from the spirit of volunteering», castigates Alexis Corbière questioned by Le Figaro. For the LFI deputy who took up the subject last August, it is inconceivable that “sports lovers who volunteer cannot attend the events». «There will be almost no compensation, only their journeys in Île-de-France will be compensated», adds the elected official from Seine-Saint-Denis, “they will work six days a week, will have to pay for their own accommodation… If they paid them at basic hourly rates, it would be less than 1% of the budget.”
Only, as clearly stated in the Charter of Olympic and Paralympic Volunteering, «the volunteer’s commitment being by nature voluntary, he carries out his mission outside of any link of permanent legal subordination, and he accomplishes the tasks entrusted to him without financial consideration or compensation of any other nature.». Et «the law is very clear“, explained Maud Simonet, research director in sociology at the CNRS and specialist in volunteering in the newspaper l’Option, “From the moment it can be shown that there is subordination, we are no longer in the context of a voluntary activity but in that of an employee contract. In the absence of a contract, this is concealed work“. The only downside for the organizers is that volunteering is defined, among other things, by “compensation in return for this commitment, which is not comparable to a salary», as specified on the website of Ministry of Education. In short, the Games must be worth it.
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