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What security measures are in place for Euro 2016?

Security is one of the major concerns regarding this summer's European Championships in France an...



What security measures are in...
Soccer

What security measures are in place for Euro 2016?

Security is one of the major concerns regarding this summer's European Championships in France and with the threat of terrorist attacks raised, the tournament will be played under a state of emergency.

This will give police forces more power to conduct stop and search protocol, as well as enforcing a curfew if the threat level is once again raised.

Speaking on today's Pat Kenny Show, lecturer in criminology and security studies in Birmingham City University Dr. John Lamb discussed some of the measures that the French authorities have put in place.

"There are respectively three forces in France," he explained, "So you have the Police National who are the local police and who undertake the day-to-day policing including neighbourhood policing. 

"There is then the Gendarmarie who are a paramilitary style police force who live in barracks and are the ones you see patrolling often with weapons at the moment during the state of emergency.

"On top of that you've got the CSR (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité) who are the specialist police units who are the guys you saw raiding the supermarkets during the last wave of attacks in Paris... The French have an experience dealing with large scale events and with several attacks, where they have caught people at the end."

The preparation levels have been ramped up once again with less than a month to go until the opening game of the tournament.

"Recently, which is probably a good thing for Euro 2016, is that they've been practising. So they staged a multi-police, multi-stakeholder mock attack on a potential fan zone so they could practice and find out where their weaknesses lie."

One of the dangers of attacking stadiums would be the panic it would cause and the damage large crowds can do to individuals that comprise them.

"The worst case scenario is that [the additional security searches] caused large bottlenecks of people outside the stadium. So where these gates were place, you had huge queues of people that creates an ideal target for a suicide bomber.

"It wouldn't just be the people who would die in the immediate explosion, it's also the stampede and the panic that would create. You only have to look at things like Hillsborough in the UK to see the crush that can be created by measures put in place by security could be just as deadly even more so than the original event."

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