Defence Secretary meets British personnel providing security to Paris Olympics
The Defence Secretary has met personnel from the RAF Regiment and British Army who are assisting French security services for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
John Healey is on a whistlestop 48-hour tour of Europe, making his first ministerial visits to France, Germany, Poland and Estonia.
At the British Embassy in Paris, he chatted with UK troops and gave a warm greeting to Luna the military sniffer dog.
British forces are in Paris to assist with security for the eight-week-long Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The security operation for what is one of the world's largest sporting events involves the largest peacetime deployment of security forces in France's history – with up to 75,000 police, soldiers and hired guards on patrol in Paris at any one time.
In April, the MOD told Forces News: "We are working across Whitehall departments on providing UK support to the security operation for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
"Our specialist search dog units will assist with venue security, and the RAF will offer equipment and personnel to help counter potential unauthorised drones."
Speaking in Warsaw on Wednesday evening, Mr Healey said: "Breakfast in Paris, lunch in Berlin, dinner in Warsaw, perhaps a beer after this is over as well.
"I wanted, in just the third week of our new UK Government, to show by coming here, that we are getting on with the job.
"We are resetting relationships between the UK and Europe.
"We wanted to show that European security is the new Government's first foreign and defence policy."
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