PARIS, March 22, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Organisers of the Paris Olympics are
insisting the games will not be impacted by the ongoing troubles of French
computer services group Atos, which provides essential services for the
competition.

Attempts to sell off parts of the heavily indebted group have fallen through,
and the company continues to lose money while its shares tumble.

"We have full confidence in Atos, which has been a partner of the Olympic
movement for 30 years and benefits from unique expertise, to honour the
contract which binds them to the IOC and therefore to Paris 2024," the
International Olympic Committee said Thursday in a statement to AFP.

The head of the Paris organising committee, Tony Estanguet, said Wednesday
that Atos's Olympic teams were working away and insisted: "We are not at all
affected by what happens at the head of the group."

To put an end to speculation, the organisers have promised to arrange a press
visit to the games' Technology Operations Center by the end of March.

Atos has been the IOC's technology partner since the Salt Lake City winter
games in 2002, in charge of managing 300,000 accreditations.

It is also charged with compiling and delivering real-time competition
results and integrating other tech partners such as phone company Orange,
digital services company Intel, telecoms equipment provider Cisco, timekeeper
Omega and audio-video company Panasonic.

- Warding off cyberattacks -

Atos says some 300 of its employees, out of a total of 110,000, will be
committed 24/7 for the duration of the games.

One of its units, Eviden, will be working with the French Cybersecurity
Agency (ANSSI) to deter attacks on the games' information systems, which are
expected to be subject to eight to 10 times as many cyber-attacks as the
Tokyo games in 2021.

"Obviously, we need to be particularly vigilant given the difficulties the
company may be facing, but I have seen no warning signs regarding the
situation of the group which would have an impact on the security of what
they do to the games," Vincent Strubel, the director general of ANSSI, said
in an interview that appeared Tuesday in daily Le Figaro.

"We are monitoring them closely to ensure that there are no problems. But
there are none today," he said.

Atos has about 3.65 billion euros ($4 billion) of debt, and its share price
has slumped 80 percent since last summer, valuing the group at just 200
million euros despite annual revenue of 11 billion euros.

Talks to sell its big data and security operations to Airbus for 1.5 billion
to 1.8 billion euros broke down Tuesday.

In February, Atos failed to reach an agreement to sell some of its operations
to Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky.