France has asked its foreign allies to send several thousand members of their security forces to help guard the Paris Olympics, officials said on Thursday, March 28, underlining the strains caused by the sporting extravaganza which begins in July.
"Several foreign nations are going to reinforce us in certain critical areas, such as dog-handling capabilities where the needs are enormous," an official at France's defense ministry told Agence France-Presse (AFP), speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The official did not say how many foreign soldiers would be on French soil, but Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz confirmed his country was joining "an international coalition established by France" for the Olympics, also without specifying the number of soldiers to be deployed.
"A task force of our soldiers, including sniffer dogs, will be deployed in Paris. Its main objective will be to undertake explosives detection and counter-terrorism operations," added the Polish minister.
According to a spokeswoman for the Polish Armed Forces General Staff, "the decisions have already been taken". "We are in the process of building a task force for the Olympics," Joanna Klejszmit told AFP, adding that French Chief of the Defense Staff Thierry Burkhard was set to visit Poland on Thursday.
An official in the French interior ministry also separately told AFP that, in January, Paris had asked 46 allies to send 2,185 police reinforcements. The request for foreign help was "for the spectators' experience, to respond to the capacity challenge of the Games and to reinforce international cooperation," the French interior ministry official explained.
Both officials have downplayed the significance of the requests for foreign assistance. "It's a classic move for host countries ahead of the organization of major events," the French interior ministry official said on condition of anonymity. For the Rugby World Cup in France last year, European allies sent 160 police officers to help with security, the official added, with some of them visible to fans as they patrolled the streets.
Germany said in March that it would send an unspecified number of police to France for the Olympics, while French forces are set to travel to Germany when it holds the Euro 2024 football tournament in June and July.
Securing the Paris Olympics is stretching France's domestic forces, however, and an attack last Friday on a concert hall in Moscow that killed more than 140 people, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, underlined the stakes. "The terrorist threat is real, it's strong," French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told reporters on Monday, adding that two plots by suspected Islamic extremists had already been thwarted this year. France was placed on its highest terror alert on Sunday following the attack in Moscow.
Up to 45,000 French police and gendarmes are set to be deployed each day during the Olympics, while 18,000 troops are also expected to be mobilized, according to government figures. Another 18,000-22,000 private security guards will be on the ground for the Games, which run from July 26 to August 11.
French security forces are screening up to a million people before the Games, including athletes and people living close to key infrastructure, according to the interior ministry.