French police unions yesterday organized what they called a “Black Thursday”, of minimal services and demonstrations, in protest of the overload of work that awaits them in the summer to guarantee security before and during the Olympic Games in Paris.
The vindictive actions, which took place all over the country, with particular impact in Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Paris, were also to express the discomfort with the little information that law enforcement officers have about the characteristics, the place and the duration of the Olympic missions.
Police stations only dealt with urgent cases in which people or property were in danger. The unions posted photos of the protests in front of police premises on social media. At Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris there was a zealous strike that caused queues at the controls.
The Summer Olympics, between July 26 and August 11, will demand, from weeks before the opening ceremony in the capital, the deployment of tens of thousands of police, soldiers and private security guards. Many policemen and gendarmes will be transferred to Paris from distant regions. The unions are worried about the organizational chaos they detect, which makes it difficult for the agents’ families to make plans and family reconciliation. Cases in which both members of the couple are police officers are not uncommon.
The Ministry of the Interior has already sent a letter to the police and gendarmes reminding them that they cannot take holidays during the period affected by the celebration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, between June 15 and September 15.
Security during the competition is a cause for concern for the French authorities, due to the country’s vulnerability to Islamist attacks in recent years and, due to the geopolitical context of the Gaza war, the fact that France hosts the largest Jewish community in Europe and millions of citizens of Arab origin. The most delicate moment will be the opening ceremony, on a six-kilometer journey along the Seine, with hundreds of thousands of people on both banks of the river.
One of the challenges of the last few months has been to find private guards – around 20,000 – to complement the police and military apparatus. New staff had to be trained very quickly. The protection services are not limited to Paris, but to all the Olympic facilities spread over the French geography.
The unions demand the payment of an exceptional premium of 2,000 euros to compensate for the extra effort that the Games will require. The ministry has proposed a bonus of up to 1,500 euros, but only in cases of very intense missions.
Police discontent comes from afar. The Games have only exacerbated it. The National Police and the Gendarmerie have been subjected to extreme pressure in recent years due to the continuous terrorist threat, the deployments due to periodic street disturbances – such as those of the yellow vests, the protests against the pension reform and the explosion of violence in the suburbs last summer – and a huge increase in crime linked to the drug trade.