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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

France excludes 800 individuals from Olympics over security fears

Around 800 people who "did not have good intentions" have been excluded from the Paris Olympics over security fears, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said Sunday.

Published: 1 April 2024 08:55 CEST
France excludes 800 individuals from Olympics over security fears
The Paris 2024 Olympics Games flag next to European Union and French flag at the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

The list includes 15 deemed to represent the most serious threat to national security.

“The French people must know that we absolutely check everyone who approaches the Olympic Games — so there are the volunteers, torch bearers, the people who will welcome you,” Darmanin told broadcaster LCI.

“There are a million checks to be done; we have already carried out 180,000 checks. We have excluded 800 people including 15 on ‘Fiches S’ (the dossier of the most serious threats).”

“That means that there are people who wanted to register to carry the flame, to be volunteers at the Olympic Games and who clearly did not have good intentions.”

Darmanin specified that among those excluded were “radical Islamists” and “radical ecology people who want to protest”. French security forces are screening up to a million people before the Olympics, including athletes and people living close to key infrastructure, according to the interior ministry.

Ahead of the start on July 26, all 10,500 athletes selected for the Olympics and 4,400 for the Paralympics will be subjected to background checks, as will their coaches and medical staff, in addition to 26,000 accredited journalists.

The Olympics are set to take place from July 26th-August 11th followed by the Paralympics from August 28th-September 8th.

France was placed on its highest alert for terror attacks in October after a suspected Islamist burst into a school in the north of the country and stabbed a teacher to death. The country has been consistently targeted by Islamic extremists over the last decade, particularly by the Islamic State group, while Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is seen as exacerbating domestic tensions.

READ ALSO: France’s allies t help with Olympics security

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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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