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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

6,000 French police to welcome Olympic torch amid bonus boost

Some 6,000 police will be deployed for the arrival of the Olympic flame in France next month, authorities said Friday as they announced bonuses for security forces to avert threatened industrial action.

Published: 27 April 2024 08:57 CEST
6,000 French police to welcome Olympic torch amid bonus boost
Greece's Olympic Committee President Spyros Capralos presents the Olympic torch to the President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, Tony Estangue on July 26th. Photo: Angelos Tzorttzinis/AFP

The police presence in the southern port of Marseille when the torch arrives from Greece on May 8 will be bigger than for a visit to the city by Pope Francis in September last year.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said an elite tactical unit, bomb disposal teams, nautical police and an anti-drone team would be in place when a 19th-century sailing boat, the Belem, enters the port. Organisers expect 150,000 people to be watching.

The extra forces will be in addition to local police and firefighters.

The torch was handed over to French Olympics organisers in Athens on Friday and the Belem will set sail on Saturday. The Paris Olympics start on July 26.

Darmanin said more than 1,000 boats that will complete the journey with the Belem will all be checked.

The minister said there was no “specific threat” to the torch event, but that law enforcement was prepared for scenarios including a “radical Islamism” attack along with far-right and far-left extremists.

France is on a heightened Olympics security alert. A 16-year-old boy was formally charged Friday after he allegedly said on social media he wanted to make an explosive belt and die a martyr at the Paris Games, anti-terrorism prosecutors said.

Investigators said the youth had been looking at “Jihadist propaganda” online.

Authorities had also feared action by police after unions threatened to disrupt the torch relay around the country, accusing the government of blocking promised bonuses.

The government announced Friday that a 50-euro monthly bonus would start for some police from July 1, which would be increased to 100 euros a month in 2025.

Unions said that Paris region police on duty during the Olympics would get a 1,900-euro bonus. This was confirmed in a letter sent to unions on Wednesday.

Unions welcomed the move but the Alliance Police Nationale said it would remain “vigilant” and could still order action over the taxation of the bonuses and overtime hours.

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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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