Euro 2016 Security: The successful application of
anticipation and coordination D
espite the state of emergency and tense atmosphere before Euro 2016,
at its conclusion it was deemed a huge success, where people felt safe and the host country, France, demonstrated its knowledge and capacity for planning and implementing security, as well as providing a positive way forward for similar large-scale events.
In this article, Ziad Khoury, Head of Safety and Security – EURO 2016, reviews the security background, approach and lessons learned from the event, as France prepares to host the Olympic Games in 2024 and continues to experience a terrorist threat level.
A unique event
Euro 2016 was unique in a number of ways: it had a World Cup format with twenty-four teams, instead of the usual sixteen, leading to fifty-one matches instead of thirty-one. There were 2.5 million spectators (2 out of 3 were visitors to France) and an average live audience of 130 million per match. There was a full month of competition with 110 official sites, plus 500 training locations (31 in public).
Fan Zones are now a substantial part of events of this nature and Euro 2016 had ten official Fan Zones (one in each host city) and many other public gatherings, including 673 public screenings. It was a new concept for France, with more people in Fan Zones (4 million) than the stadia.
Every Euro match is like a final. The layout of the stadium is changed with different accesses, flows and space allocations. The new layout is under the control of the organisers one month before the beginning of the tournament.
Media and social networks placed a permanent focus on the event, not just the matches but anything happening during this period. There was an average of 625 tweets per minute with the hashtag EURO 2016 during this month and 300 million visits to the Euro 2016 digital platforms during the tournament.
The event was taking place in France, with its easy access. It is a country with known political positions. And the tolerance threshold for incidents was low.
The security challenges
Of course, security was a priority, with the aim of achieving a dynamic balance between security and festivity.
The first challenge was to manage the relationship between public and private culture: the UEFA approach and regulations
16 © CI TY S ECURI TY MAGAZ INE – WINT ER 2017
and the national laws and culture. Within this, security was the most volatile issue. The aim was to have one global security project and to convert concern into confidence.
The second challenge was less about the risks of Euro 2016 itself, more about the risks it could import as a worldwide and mass event. In normal circumstances, the event is already under a huge and continuous spotlight. In this case, it was under the highest terrorist threat level.
Thirdly, the challenge was to succeed in involving and combining exceptional private and public resources. There was huge pressure on the numbers of public and private security agents, since the existing numbers were not sufficient.
A major joint security operation
The security operation involved large numbers of personnel with 77,000 police officers and military personnel from the gendarmerie. Private security played an unprecedented role in order to supplement and optimise public security tasks. There were 70 contracts signed, based on a transparent selection process and qualitative criteria, with almost 100,000 uses of agents for official site security (from a screened and accredited pool of 13,000 professionals). There were 925 stewards as an average for each match, 1 for 70 spectators.
www. c i t y s e c u r i t yma g a z i n e . com Coordination and organisation
Bringing all of these resources together to meet the complex set of requirements and challenges required significant consultation and coordination between the organisers and public authorities. They signed a detailed Memorandum of Understanding on security. Several working groups were established, covering all the issues, such as cyber security, CBRN and police screening.
There was a national security working group co-chaired between the organisers and state authorities and a local security working group in each host city, as well as a dedicated national liaison group with private security representatives. These groups involved many joint meetings, site visits as well as thirty security-related exercises.
European cooperation
European cooperation was an important aspect with a delegation of six police officers and spotters from each qualified country, as well as Europol and Interpol staff, and a police cooperation centre was created.
Security approach
The security model implemented was a mix between human and technical systems, including Access Control systems, CCTV, anti- drone systems and private dog units. Technology was also used for live reporting and social network monitoring: one report per day and specific alerts.
As France prepares for the Olympi security lessons have been lear
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