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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Wanted: Chefs, cleaners and bus drivers for Paris Olympics

The organisers of the Paris Olympics are in a race to fill 16,000 job vacancies ranging from chefs and cleaners to bus drivers and technicians.

Published: 22 September 2023 09:16 CEST
Wanted: Chefs, cleaners and bus drivers for Paris Olympics
Olympic Phryges mascots pose for a photograph with French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera and President of the Paris 2024 Olympics, Tony Estanguet. Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP

A recruitment fair is being held next week at the Olympic athletes’ village in Saint-Denis in a quest to find suitable candidates with the 2024 Games only 10 months away.

With employers in some sectors struggling to recruit since the Covid pandemic, this Olympian-size job drive will be “a challenge for both private security and catering”, said Cecile Martin from the French government’s department of labour.

Non-EU workers will need a residency permit in place in order to work – employers will not sponsor visas for overseas workers – and there has been additional scrutiny on Olympic projects after it was found that some staff working on Games construction projects were undocumented. 

All of this means that next week employers will have to convince potential candidates that the Olympic rings on their CVs represents a plus.

“It’s a rich experience which will be valued by future employers,” promised Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris 2024 organising committee.

“It’s a great challenge, like the Games,” he told AFP.

“And all the better if the dynamic of the Olympic Games enables sectors in difficulty to find employees.”

The company awarded the contract to keep the athletes fed and watered at the Olympic Village and in 14 competition venues is seeking to recruit 6,000 staff.

The French RATP transport company needs bus drivers, while the clock is ticking for security firms to find the 17,000 to 22,000 people required to help the Games run smoothly.

Several thousand more will be required to help secure the fan zones.

According to Pole Emploi, France’s national employment centre, by the end of last month 6,200 people had been hired in this sector with a further 8,000 on training courses.

The Paris organising committee also needs staff in various areas. Its team numbers 1,700 now, with over 4,000 required by the time of the Games.

How many actual new jobs of the 18,000 identified will be created by next year’s Olympics is uncertain.

“This information will be available at the end of the Games,” said Christophe Lepetit from the Centre for Law and Economics of Sport (CDES).

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes’ beds are ‘anti-sex’

They may be made of cardboard, but the beds at the athletes' village for this year's Paris Olympics have been chosen for their environmental credentials, not to prevent competitors having sex, organisers said.

Published: 18 May 2024 13:19 CEST
Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes' beds are 'anti-sex'

The clarification came after fresh reports that the beds, manufactured by Japanese company Airweave and already used during the Tokyo 2020 Games, were to deter athletes from jumping under the covers together in the City of Love.

“We know the media has had a lot of fun with this story since Tokyo 2020, but for Paris 2024 the choice of these beds for the Olympic and Paralympic Village is primarily linked to a wider ambition to ensure minimal environmental impact and a second life for all equipment,” a spokesman for the Paris Games told AFP.

The bed bases are made from recycled cardboard, but during a demonstration in July last year Airweave founder Motokuni Takaoka jumped on one of them and stressed that they “can support several people on top”.

The Paris Games spokesman underlined that “the quality of the furniture has been rigorously tested to ensure it is robust, comfortable and appropriate for all the athletes who will use it, and who span a very broad range of body types – from gymnasts to judokas”.

The fully modular Airweave beds can be customised to accommodate long and large body sizes, with the mattresses — made out of resin fibre — available with different firmness levels.

After the Games, the bed frames will be recycled while the mattresses and pillows will be donated to schools or associations.

Athletes will sleep in single beds, two or three to a room, in the village, a newly built complex close to the main athletics stadium in a northern suburb of the capital.

A report this week in the New York Post tabloid entitled “‘Anti-sex’ beds have arrived at Paris Olympics” was reported by other media and widely circulated on social media.

Similar claims went viral before the Tokyo Olympics, sometimes fanned by athletes themselves.

To debunk them, Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan filmed a video of himself jumping repeatedly on a bed to demonstrate their solidity.

At those Games, during the coronavirus pandemic, organisers, however, urged athletes to “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

In March, Laurent Dalard, in charge of first aid and health services at Paris 2024, said around 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women will be made available at the athletes’ village during the Games.

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