French police unions have organized what they call a “Black Thursday” of minimum services and demonstrations to protest the overload of work that awaits them next summer before and during the Paris Olympics. The protest actions, which take place throughout the country, are also to express their discomfort at the limited information they have about the characteristics and duration of their missions on the occasion of the sporting event.
Most police stations will only deal with urgent cases this Thursday in which people or property are in danger. Photos of specific protests by agents in front of police stations circulate on social networks. Demonstrations are planned in numerous cities during the day.
The Summer Olympic Games, between July 26 and August 11, will require, weeks before the opening ceremony in the capital, the deployment of tens of thousands of police, soldiers and private security guards. Many police and gendarmes will be transferred to Paris from remote regions. The unions are concerned about the chaos they detect, which makes plans for the agents’ families and conciliation difficult. There are not rare cases in which both members of the couple are police officers.
Police and gendarmes have already received a letter from the Ministry of the Interior reminding them that they cannot take vacations during the period affected by the Olympic and Paralympic Games, between June 15 and September 15.
Security during the Games is the main cause of concern for the French authorities, especially 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 in attendance on both banks.
One of the challenges of recent months has been finding private agents – about 20,000 – to complement the police and military security device. New staff had to be trained in a hurry. The necessary protection services are not limited to Paris but to all the Olympic facilities throughout France and overseas.
The unions demand the payment of an exceptional bonus of 2,000 euros to compensate for overexertion during the Games. The Ministry has proposed paying 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 under a lot of pressure in recent years due to terrorism, periodic riots – such as the ‘yellow vests’, protests against pension reform or the explosion of violence in the suburbs of last July – and a considerable increase in crime due to drug trafficking.
