“The idea is to make the biggest mess possible,” explains Jean*, activist for Saccage 2024. Since its creation in October 2020, the collective has “entered into resistance in the face of the ecological and social destruction caused by the Games Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. This February 6, in a room at the Aubervilliers Labor Exchange, in front of a handful of convinced people, Jean preaches. “Budget overrun”, “expulsion of the most deprived from urban space”, “ecological disaster”… The activist criticizes the sporting event. “We can no longer cancel the 2024 Olympics, he concedes. But the 2030 Olympics, yes. If the Parisian edition leads to a popular revolt, the Olympic committee will think twice before accepting the file! “
“It’s still early. But the action will pick up in the coming weeks,” Jean convinces himself. His hope is motivated, in particular, by the recent filing of strike notice from the CGT-RATP until the end of the Olympic Games. “Enough to imagine big problems in transport,” he dreams. But also by the proliferation of organizations which, in recent months, have indicated that they want to participate in the protest. Extinction Rebellion, Youth for Climate, Last renovation (which became Food Response)… The champions of civil disobedience joined the mobilization calls for Saccage 2024. And then there is, also, the fantasy of social discontent, based on the still glowing embers of demonstrations against pension reform. In 2023, the slogan “No withdrawal, no Olympics” has raised hopes for more than one. “Something is happening,” Arthur, also a Sacage 2024 activist, wants to believe. “More and more people want to try action.”
Diffuse threat
The ultra-left threat is diffuse, but sufficiently precise for Beauvau to worry about it. On January 22, the Minister of the Interior unveiled the device for securing the Olympic flame. A “security bubble” made up of 100 police and gendarmerie personnel. Gérald Darmanin indicated that he feared the action of a “set of ultra-left environmentalist collectives”, including Saccage 2024, but also Youth for Climate and activists from the Earth Uprisings. Understandable vigilance. The biggest sporting event in the world is a showcase for France, but also a formidable sounding board. For collectives and organizations experienced in communication, the opportunity is too good to let it slip away.
“Each edition of the Olympic Games is targeted by two types of protests: one, opportunistic, which intends to seize the media showcase and another directed directly against the Olympism and its values”, explains Hugo Bourbillères, lecturer in Staps at the Rennes 2 University and co-author of a work on the opposition processes for the 2024 Olympic Games. When the Parisian candidacy is accepted, Saccage 2024 emerges. The organization stands out in 2023, with the publication of a text in the independent far-left media Basta. Alongside other local organizations, such as the Collective for the Defense of the Gardens of Aubervilliers or Youth for Climate Ile-de-France, the activists are imagining a plan called “No volunteers for the JOP 2024: a tutorial to spoil their campaign of hidden work. The idea: to be selected among the 45,000 Olympic volunteers, before going on strike at the time of the competition.
The national administrative security investigation service, attached to the national police, which scrutinizes the files of future volunteers, is said to have let several profiles of anti-Olympic activists pass through. “Like mine,” assures Arthur with a smile. “My criminal record is clean, so I suppose that didn’t alert them despite my activist activity.” According to him, “around 500 people” would have slipped through the cracks and would have the firm intention of stopping on D-Day. A “mistake”, they assure us in Beauvau where there is talk, without further details, of “lies”. “There are no real instructions on what to do or not: volunteers are invited not to show up, or to go and do nothing,” explains Arthur. to be creative.”
In addition to its “volunteer strike” plan, Saccage 2024 claims above all an “informative” action. In this spirit, the collective has notably created a “map of the ransacks of the 2024 Olympic Games”, listing the consequences deemed harmful of the Olympic Games, from the “deadly Saint-Denis Pleyel station” to “the massive increase in video surveillance on the 93 “. This colorful drawing circulated widely on the sites of the French microcosm of the ultra-left, Permanent Revolution, Paris-luttes.info or Indymedia Nantes. Its diffusion is not surprising. For months, blogs and sites related to the movement have multiplied conferences and anti-Olympic content, rejoicing at each misstep or delay by the organization. “Olympic Games and democracy: an impossible encounter”, headlined Paris-luttes-info in October 2021. “The Olympic Games of rants,” the site Contre Attaque complained in January. “The Olympic Games, party capitalism and the response of activists,” reported the Info Libertaire site at the end of the month. “Anti-revolutionary political currents have always abhorred major sporting events,” observes Hugo Melchior, researcher in contemporary history at Rennes 2 University. In 1976, the Revolutionary Communist League denounced, for example, in the press “the hidden face of the Games of Montreal.”
“Everyone is free to use it”
Some clearly want to go further. On January 28, the blog Sans nom, a sort of press review of anarcho-autonomous actions (a current of the ultra-left), took up, for example, an article from Parisian under the title “Paris: the barges of the Olympic Games and towns on the gridiron”. Welcoming the double fire that targeted the Petrus III, the blog highlighted in bold, in a sibylline manner, the ship’s links with the Olympic Games.
Other sites call for action more broadly, such as the Radar squat site, which relays calls from bimonthly meetings to organize “coordination against the Olympic Games”, to Manifesten, an “associative bookstore café” in Marseille. The Phocaean city, host city of the Olympic flame and sporting events, inevitably attracts the attention of activists. This is also the case for less expected places, also marked by the path of the flame, such as in the Meuse department. Touting the ability of Meuse activists to start fires in recent years (“vehicles, various installations, electricity pylons, police stations…”), an anonymous author from Unnamed encourages fires to start. “There are seven months left to prove ourselves worthy of this celebration and to multiply the centers of rejoicing as much as possible until the final bouquet of June 29,” it is written.
In another blog post, this time from the Lorraine site “Manif’Est”, an anonymous author encourages attacks on the “Control Olympics”, by revealing a “non-exhaustive” list of around fifty companies having participated in the cyber security of the Olympics. There we find the postal addresses of their headquarters, but also the names, emails and even telephone numbers of their public affairs managers, customer managers or managers. “It seemed important to us to share the information that we were able to collect,” indicates the post, which concludes with a threatening: “Everyone is free to use it in any way that seems appropriate to them.”
Added to these scattered actions are those of collectives accustomed to civil disobedience, such as Dernier renovation or Extinction Rebellion. In November, the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines national golf course was the subject of an attack by activists, with several individuals destroying part of the green. “The Olympics are approaching… With Saccage 2024, actions will multiply”, promised, two months before, the Ile-de-France branch of the collective. “More than an action around the Olympic flame, which will be very well protected, we must fear a coup from these organizations during the ceremony, for example, or on the sidelines of the events, notes a former hierarch of the Ministry of Defense. ‘Interior. It would not be a violent action, rather a very high-profile gesture, to disrupt and benefit from the Games platform.’ An initiative similar to that led by two Riposte Alimentaire activists who sprayed the window of the restaurant at the end of January Mona Lisa, at the Louvre. “Civil disobedience actions against the Olympics will begin in March, assures a member of Youth for Climate. They are being developed with several groups.”
*The first name has been changed
.