frogsmoke.com

In the bad (or good?) old days of communism it was de rigueur that sportsmen and women were state employees.

Today, it's no different. No less than twenty members of the French Olympic team are on the government payroll: eight gendarmes (including triple medal winner Alain Bernard, shown above), eight customs officers, and four policemen and women. And they're quite successful — seven of them have won Olympic medals (two gold) representing over a third of all French medals.

In their daily life, hardly any of these athletes wears a uniform. They're allowed to focus full-time on their sport, while at the same time earning a taxpayer-provided salary and the prospect of a solid pension. The only time they look like civil servants is when they're asked to show up for public relations exercises or recruitment shows.

I'm not sure if France is an exception in this regard.

Source (in French)