DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP
Paris 2024 Olympics: Why Poland will send soldiers to France for the Olympics (illustrative photo)
POLICY – In sport as in security, unity is strength. Poland will send military reinforcements to help secure the Olympic Games in Paris, the Polish Minister of Defense announced this Thursday, March 28. It is a process “classic for host countries” who request it, specify the services of Gérald Darmanin, thus decorrelating it from the recent raising of the Dacian alert level to the terrorist threat.
“The Polish armed forces will join the international coalition set up by France to support the preparation and security of the 2024 Summer Olympics”Polish Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on the social network X, without specifying the number of soldiers deployed. “A task force made up of our soldiers, including with sniffer dogs, will be deployed in Paris. Its primary objective will be to undertake explosives detection and counter-terrorism operations”he added.
At HuffPost, the Ministry of the Interior specifies that this announcement responds to a request made by France at the beginning of January to 46 foreign partners. In all, nearly 2,185 reinforcements were requested. “This is a classic approach for host countries to organize major international events”in order to “take into account the spectator experience, respond to the capacity challenge of the Games and strengthen international cooperation”, specifies Beauvau. A similar system was put in place during the Rugby World Cup, with 160 members of the European security forces, the same source points out.
German reinforcements already announced
In mid-March, Gérald Darmanin announced a similar arrangement with Germany on the occasion of the visit to Paris of his counterpart from across the Rhine.
In addition to the French forces, “operational forces of the federal police” German will be deployed “to ensure the protection of the House of Germany and the German Sports Festival at the Jean Bouin stadium in Paris”already specified a joint press release. “Germany will send other reinforcements to secure public roads in support of French services, according to modalities currently being defined”he added.
Despite the deployment of the maximum level of the attack alert, Gérald Darmanin wants to be reassuring four months before the Olympics. “The French police, the gendarmes, the prefects, the intelligence will be ready”he declared on March 25 during a trip to Roubaix. “We have an extremely effective intelligence system. We prevent attacks from taking place almost every month”he insisted.
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