France facing significant Euro 2016 security costs

French national and local authorities are facing a huge bill for security at next summer’s European championships. The president of the local organising committee Jacque Lambert has said that there is a great deal of work to be done just to get to the stage where it is clear what is actually required

Lambert said that the tournament organisers had spent a great deal of time studying the events of Friday, November 13th, in order to draw conclusions on how to prepare for the tournament next summer.

He said that with the French authorities preoccupied by the United Nations Climate Change conference, and some local authorities still getting to grips with the scale of the changed security landscape, there is a lot of work to be done.

He insisted, however, that there is enough time to do all that is required.

City authorities had expressed a strong desire to proceed with the planned ‘fanzones’, he said, despite concerns that these might be vulnerable to attack.

“The various governments expressed the wish to have the crowd gather in one place rather than be scattered around towns,” he said.

He said that perhaps the most important aspect of the preparations would be to ensure that the police and military security provided by government works closely and effectively with the private security companies being hired by the tournament organisers.

The task of working to prevent attacks at such an enormous event – Paris alone is expecting three million visitors while the tournament is on – is daunting.

Security

Earlier in the day, the deputy mayor of Paris with responsibility for tourism and sport, Jean-François Martins, said that the security measures being taken would overshadow those at any previous tournament.

“I cannot sign a 100 per cent guarantee for you. Nobody can do that because you cannot know what will happen, but we will do all that we can do to make it the safest Euros ever, I think. No Euro competition has had the sort of security that we will have for this one in Paris ... and in France.”