The Court of Auditors points to security and transport as "risks to be circumscribed" for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (OG). In a report that AFP obtained on Monday before its publication, it also presses the organizing committee of the JO, the Cojo, to speed up the signing of certain contracts.
This report, commissioned for a long time, which sweeps all the subjects, must be presented Tuesday to the Assembly and the Senate and published Wednesday.
Dated January 2023, it does not however take into account the last Cojo budget revision of December 2022. Another report is planned for the first half of 2023. “The issues relating to security and transport remain challenges to be met and must be addressed. the object of particular vigilance by the public authorities and the organizing committee", notes the Court.
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On security, the Court of Auditors recommends "planning the use of internal security forces by ensuring a balance between covering the needs for the Games and those of security throughout the national territory".
It recommends “stabilizing private security needs and establishing alternative measures to remedy its probable shortcomings” because the need for private security agents, more than 20,000 at a minimum, is very likely not to be satisfied.
It recommends “finalizing the overall security plan for the Games before the end of the first half of 2023”.
Work on the Eole line and Porte Maillot, two sensitive points
The security of the Olympic Games and that of the unprecedented opening ceremony on the Seine has been the subject of multiple meetings for two years and a distribution of responsibilities between the State, the organizing committee and the communities.
With regard to transport in Ile-de-France, “some projects present at this stage uncertainties about their delivery time and increase the tension on the existing transport network”.
"Several infrastructure operations (...) present major risks due to already tight schedules and no real room for maneuver", she notes, referring to Eole (the extension of the RER E) and the redevelopment of Porte Maillot, to the west of Paris.
“If they were not completed for the Games, the result would be an unsustainable tension on the heavily used lines, with the associated risks of incidents and congestion for daily users.
Such phenomena would contribute to greatly degrading the acceptability of the event for the population, ”she further notes.
Still uncertainties about the real cost of the Games
Regarding the Cojo, which increased its budget by 10% in December, to 4380 billion euros, the Court exposes several criticisms.
She first reports the delay in signing contracts with equipment, such as the Stade de France, which will be used for the Olympics.
"At the beginning of November 2022, only eleven of the 80 planned user agreements had been signed (...) These successive shifts now expose the committee to a proven risk, due to the resulting chain consequences on the preparation of the Games and, in particular, for the conclusion of the negotiations on the outsourced model of delivery of the Games", worries the Court.
She asks that these agreements be signed in early 2023. She mentions “an operational risk and a financial risk”.
For her there are many "substantial uncertainties about the final balance of the Cojo's budget".
She criticizes him in particular for having drawn 115 million euros from his reserve of 315 million, because this amounts to "deferring savings measures likely to be taken later".
Although the Cojo is an association under the 1901 law which operates with private funds, the State acts as guarantor in the event of a deficit.
Furthermore, the Court notes that in the current state, between the budget lines of the Cojo, Solideo (responsible for permanent works), the expenses of the communities and those of the State which have not yet been fixed, it does not is unable to calculate the real cost of the Olympic Games and "its total impact on public finances".
