The President of the Republic is organizing, Monday to two years from the games, “a stage point” with a dozen ministers. On the menu in particular the security and budgetary challenges.
Le Monde with AFP
The Olympic Games (OJ) in Paris, it is in two years (July 26-August 11, 2024). Still far ? Without a doubt. But a number of sensitive – and heavy – subjects linked to the organization of this event are to be settled in the coming weeks and months. Starting with controlling the cost of the event, the Olympic Games having always given rise to budgetary drifts, or even security challenges, after the alert caused by the fiasco of the organization of the Champions League final Football at Stade France, May 28.
These two files will be at the heart of the meeting convened on Monday 25 July by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron. A “site meeting” to “make a step of a step, and possibly mark the points of fragility”, according to the Elysée, where it is emphasized that the president wants to show that the Olympics are a priority of this beginning of five -year period and that nothing should be left to chance.
Nothing filtered from what could give birth to this meeting which, initially, was to bring together all the actors of the file and to which, ultimately, were only invited to dozen ministers (including those of the Economy, interior, defense, national education, sports) and representatives of the State services concerned.
The “more precise definition of security needs becomes urgent”
The participants will necessarily mention a provisional report of the Court of Auditors, which considers that the “more precise definition of security needs becomes urgent”, according to the elements revealed, Wednesday July 20, by the weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, and which AFP also got to know.
Securing the opening ceremony with an unprecedented staging on the Seine, lack of private security agents, terrorist risks and cyber attacks … The Court of Auditors lists several subjects of concern shared by sources security.
“This meeting will be an opportunity for the Minister [Gérald Darmanin] to repeat that the preparation of the Olympics constitutes his priority,” said the Ministry of the Interior.
The budgetary question will also be on the menu. The “Lambert report”, by the name of the president of the audit committee, Jacques Lambert, in charge, at the end of February, by Tony Estanguet, the boss of the organizing committee of Paris 2024 (COJOP), to identify “the main risks and Budgetary and operational issues “, recently pointed out a” very inflationary risk “.
The impact is being evaluated by the cojop. “Yes, inflation will have impacts on Paris 2024, we must redouble a vigilance,” admitted Tony Estanguet who had already alarmed in mid-May before the International Olympic Committee (CIO) of a “inflationary context impossible to imagine A few months ago “.
The vagaries linked to the COVVI-19, to the war in Ukraine or inflation cannot make people forget the responsibilities of the organizers in the risk of slippage. “We explode the budgets everywhere,” warns a good connoisseur of the file. The bill for the latest changes in Olympic sites could for example be heavier than expected.
it remains to be seen what will be the extent of the additional costs. This will determine the amount of savings to be found. Two years after a first concept review – which had made it possible to generate 300 million euros in room for maneuver -, the cojop teams are forced to a new inventory: transport, accommodation, catering, logistics …