They will give a maximum of ten days of their time. To limit the risk of litigation, the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games Organizing Committee has drawn up a “volunteering” charter to oversee the 45,000 volunteers who will give their time in the summer of 2024. The idea being that these volunteering or volunteering assignments are not reclassified as work.

In its charter for “Olympic and Paralympic volunteering”, the Organizing Committee specifies from the outset that “the commitment of the Olympic and Paralympic volunteer (OPV) being by nature voluntary, he carries out his mission outside of any bond of subordination permanent legal position, and performs the tasks assigned to him without financial consideration or compensation of any other kind”.

A sign that it is indeed volunteering, in the legal sense of the term, the volunteer can “withdraw their commitment, at any time, for any reason whatsoever, including during the performance of the mission”.

In a report published in January on the Olympic Games, the Court of Auditors underlines that if this charter “is based on a legislative provision [olympic law 2018, editor’s note] and offers a range of solid clues which could rule out possible litigation, it remains a fragile legal framework, in the absence of any regulatory and statutory scope”.

To overcome this fragility, “it is therefore important to be particularly vigilant on the application of its provisions and, in particular, on the principles of eligibility, the categories of missions and the respect of the principles of exclusion of some of them. they “. For example, a volunteer could not supplant a security guard for a security mission.

In addition, a volunteer “cannot be accommodated except in exceptional circumstances”, explains to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Deborah David, lawyer in labor law. This is indeed the case for the Olympics. Accommodation is only provided exceptionally, in the event of “late return home for a specific event”, explains Alexandre Morenon-Condé, program manager at the organizing committee.

“We have to be careful because the more we do, the more there is a risk that what we grant them will not be qualified as a reimbursement of expenses, but as a benefit in kind subject to social security contributions”, further analyzes Deborah David.

The volunteers will have a paid meal per day and will be paid for their transportation to get to the site. On this subject, the Minister of Sports and the Olympics, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, recalled this fall the exchanges between the Ministry of Labor and Urssaf so that “the little Decathlon uniform and the benefits related to food, or insurance to civil liability” are “not subject to social security contributions”.

For Deborah David, the charter is “a manual” that “allows us to serve as a reference”. “There shouldn’t be massive reskilling, but in very marginal and high-conflict situations, there could be litigation,” she predicts.

A hypothesis which for her remains largely theoretical and which could concern cases of “harassment” or “discrimination” likely to “give rise to requalification to compensate the volunteer”.