The group and others say the Olympics will harm the environment and benefit business tycoons and elites rather than the local population.
A French anti-Olympic group is seeking to disrupt the 2024 Paris Games with a campaign of fake volunteering.
The group, which calls itself Saccage 2024, or “Destroy 2024,” says that volunteers to work in organizing the Olympic Games should be paid for their efforts.
“Volunteering is supposed to be for the greater good and that is not the case for the Olympics which have no charitable aims,” said Arthur, a member of the group.
Arthur (25 years), an environmental activist, lives in the suburb of Saint-Denis, which will witness the bulk of the Olympic activities.
He says he will seek to disrupt the Games by volunteering and then withdrawing at the last moment if he is selected by the organizing committee.
The group and others say the Olympics will harm the environment and benefit business tycoons and elites rather than the local population.
The Paris Games 2024 Organizing Committee is seeking the assistance of 45,000 volunteers who will apply for candidacy no later than May 3.
The committee said that it will verify the credibility of the volunteer candidates through a comprehensive examination, which will ask them to prove their motives and experiences.
The campaign of the “Destroy 2024” group reflects a general feeling of resentment among some French citizens towards the authorities, especially in the midst of major protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
It is not yet clear how popular the campaign to disrupt the 2024 Paris Olympics has attracted.
