Paris Olympics looking at shortage of security contractors

PARIS — Three months before an Olympics that presents unprecedented security challenges at a globally tense time, French officials are facing a potential shortfall of qualified private contractors to help protect the Games.

Paris 2024 organizers have been saying that they need 22,000 private security agents to work in and around Olympics venues, while 35,000 police officers and 18,000 French military troops secure public spaces. But leaders in the private security sector say that a worker shortage may make it hard to meet the demand.

“The problem is the workforce,” said Pierre Brajeux, president of the French Federation of Private Security. “Will we have enough guards to properly ensure the security of the Games? We need to hit the accelerator.”

The Olympics organizers, he said, “have struggled to find companies” through four rounds of contract bidding.

An especially tough sell: the job of managing the 104,000 ticketed spectators on the lower banks of the Seine during the floating boat parade of the July 26 Opening Ceremonies. President Emmanuel Macron has said that only in the case of a clear and imminent terrorist threat would the event be modified — contained in the Trocadero Square facing the Eiffel Tower or moved to the Stade de France, the national stadium.

“We didn’t manage to convince the companies for the ceremony,” Paris 2024 security chief Bruno le Ray told Le Monde this past week.

Some private security companies were reluctant to bid because they didn’t want to be liable for contracts they might not be able to fulfill. Even before the Olympics, the sector assessed that it was dealing with a labor shortage of 20,000 people. Although there has been a concerted push to get more people trained and certified, including through an accelerated three-week course funded by France’s unemployment agency and the regional administration, it may not be enough.

Sports Minister Amélie OudéaCastéra said in a television interview this past week that the sector needed 8,000 more recruits to ensure full staffing for all the Olympics events in Paris.

Above all, French officials want to limit the vulnerability of the Games — to terrorism, crowd crushes and other security threats. They are also wary of an embarrassment like during the London 2012 Olympics, when a private security company’s failure to deliver on its contract meant that military troops had to be called in to check handbags.

Some officials have shrugged off concerns, saying that more than 20,000 people are newly trained or in the pipeline. By July, they should at least be certified to work at major events — doing bag checks and pat-downs, interacting with crowds and monitoring for suspicious behavior.