Olympic Games 2024: 20,000 soldiers mobilized to ensure security

“The Olympic Games will be an extremely important moment for our country. This important moment, the armies will be there, and we will have almost 20,000 men from the armies and the Army deployed at that time,” he declared during a trip closing his tour of the regions which began in autumn.

These men and women deployed during the Olympic Games will have to “accompany the journey of the Olympic flame”, some of the guardians being soldiers. In July and August, “a part (of the military) will be mobilized for the protection, in the broad sense, of the Olympic Games, in support of the internal security forces”, with Sentinel missions “for general control of spaces” or for “ a certain number of specific measures or missions”.

The armies will in particular be responsible for protecting the port of departure for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine, in Paris. “It is important that this deployment be anticipated,” he said. The armies will create, on the Reuilly lawn, a place of accommodation for “several thousand soldiers”. The Chief of Staff of the Army also spoke of the recruitment difficulties encountered last year, referring to “a new breathing space” for the French army.

“Of the 16,000 young people that we recruit each year, there is a significant proportion which is that of non-commissioned soldiers (...) This year, 2,000 of them did not join us. Which is something new. Until now we were able to recruit the quantity and quality of the soldiers we needed,” he said.

The explanations for this “air gap” can be “structural” with “age groups which are in the process of decreasing” or even “perhaps there is a distance between the average way of life and the way of life in the armies. They can also, according to him, be “cyclical”, with a potential “Covid effect”, on adolescents confined in 2020 and now of age to enlist, further detailed Mr. Schill.

But “the trend towards the end of the year is picking up,” observed Mr. Schill. A visible recruitment campaign “in the streets” has also been launched. And “beyond the question of attractiveness for those who join us, we have a challenge in trying to increase the loyalty of those who are in the ranks”. General Schill also mentioned “the establishment, in the Grand Est, in the years to come, of a cyber company”, this dimension being “increasingly important”.