The Trojan horse of the Olympic Games. Fomented by five collectives opposed to the holding of the global sporting event, this infiltration plan is entitled “No volunteers for the 2024 JOPs: a tutorial to spoil their hidden work campaign”. Publicly revealed last spring in a column published by Basta, the strategy is based on “entryism”, an infiltration technique well known to the Trotskyists of the 1920s. The idea? Dynamize the organization of the Games from within. For this, the signatory collectives then called on their activists to apply to join the ranks of the 45,000 volunteers, these little volunteer hands who “will play a key role in the success of the Paris 2024 Games”, presents the event website. And call it quits on D-day.
“How can such a lucrative mega sporting event for its organizers and sponsors rely on so many volunteers and civic service?”, ask the organizations in their column, co-signed by the CGT member Gérard Filoche and the elected ecologist from the Ile-de-France region Annie Lahmer . For them, “the missions of volunteers during the event [being] work, the presumption of employment is total”. So to “prevent this anti-social enterprise from benefiting from the free work of thousands of people”, the activists intend to undermine the ground. “We therefore call on everyone to apply”, then choose not to go, strike and ask to be paid, go to the industrial tribunal, go on a “zeal strike” or even publicly denounce the situation on site . The plan is to advance in disguise, pass mandatory training and police investigations, and then fail at the last moment. An email address has even been created to advise anyone who encounters difficulty registering and also to coordinate the actions of false volunteers.
And the preparations seem to be progressing well. “We have had a lot of feedback from people who have been “involuntary”, and not necessarily activists, says Arthur, member of the Saccage 2024 collective at Le Figaro. Currently, we have a candidate validated by the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympics (Cojop) in almost all key positions. If compulsory training and police investigations will certainly scour out a good part of the false volunteers, “the action is already a media success: light has been shed on this hidden work,” smiles this regular at anti-Olympic demonstrations.
The threat of a fifth column at the heart of the army of 45,000 volunteers does not seem to worry the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. “The exercise of volunteering missions at the Paris 2024 Games will be carried out within an extremely precise and supervised framework,” reassures Alexandre Morenon-Condé, head of the Paris 2024 volunteer program. With more than 300,000 candidates, Cojop has the lots of choice. The profiles recommended by sports federations will also be selected as a priority, to avoid unpleasant surprises as much as possible. Above all, “a team of volunteers who can be mobilized in the event of withdrawal, who can, if necessary, come and carry out missions during the Games” is planned. And “accredited volunteers will be subject to an administrative investigation by the authorized state services,” adds Alexandre Morenon-Conde.
A serenity that does not prevent criticism. “Thousands of people who participate in a gigantic profit machine, without being an employee but with a hierarchy to respect, it is a diversion from the spirit of volunteering,” criticizes Alexis Corbière interviewed by Le Figaro. For the LFI deputy who took up the subject last August, it is inconceivable that “sport lovers who volunteer will not be able to attend the events”. “There will be almost no compensation, only their journeys in Île-de-France will be compensated,” adds the elected official from Seine-Saint-Denis, “they will work six days a week, will have to find accommodation at their own expense… If they paid them at basic hourly rates, it would be less than 1% of the budget.
However, as the Charter of Olympic and Paralympic Volunteering clearly states, “the volunteer’s commitment being by nature voluntary, he carries out his mission outside of any link of permanent legal subordination, and he accomplishes the tasks entrusted to him without compensation. financial or compensation of any other nature. And “the law is very clear,” explained Maud Simonet, research director in sociology at the CNRS and specialist in volunteering in the newspaper l’Option, “from the moment it can be shown that there is subordination, we do not we are no longer in the context of a voluntary activity but in that of a salaried contract. In the absence of a contract, this is hidden work.” The only downside for the organizers is that volunteering is defined, among other things, as “compensation in return for this commitment, which is not comparable to a salary”, as specified on the Ministry of Education website. In short, the Games must be worth it.
