Next frontier in France’s protests: Fake Olympic volunteers

By JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Preparations in France for the 2024 Olympic Games had been going largely smoothly. That is starting to change. Olympic contestation is picking up online and starting to spill onto streets, because protesters are linking the Paris Games to unpopular pension reforms pushed through by French President Emmanuel Macron. A band of Olympic opponents who call themselves “un-volunteers” are surreptitiously working to infiltrate and disrupt next year’s Games by signing up as would-be Olympic volunteers. There also are small and sporadic protests targeting Olympic preparations. Olympic organizers say polling shows enduring strong support for the Paris Games. But critics of Macron want to disrupt the show to retaliate for his raising of France’s retirement age from 62 to 64.