VSt is a spotlight that Paris 2024 would have gladly done without. The Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) saw its premises in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) raided on Tuesday morning by police officers dispatched by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF). Solidéo, a public company in charge of the construction of Olympic sites, experienced the same treatment.
In question ? Suspicions of illegal taking of interests, embezzlement of public funds or even favoritism in the context of contracts linked to the preparation of the Paris JOP. Two investigations were opened, one in 2017 and the other in 2022.
Two men aroused the attention of the investigators and were also targeted by the searches: Etienne Thobois, managing director of Paris 2024, and his former partner in a consulting company, Edouard Donnely, also a former provider of Paris 2024 with another company, before being appointed executive director of operations of Cojop, in November 2022.
The Paris 2024 teams, who claim to be among “the most controlled organizations in France”, ensure that the ethics committee they have set up aims to prevent situations of conflict of interest. But the damage is done. The Organizing Committee will have to wrap up the last year of preparation for the Games with the threat of legal proceedings that could come back to it like a boomerang.
A damaged image
Even if no indictment and a fortiori conviction has been pronounced, and even if the Minister of Sports and JOP says “serene”, the shock wave is devastating. The cameras were numerous on Tuesday at the headquarters of Paris 2024, and the searches carried out the puffs of the foreign press. Despite its “demining” operations, the Cojop will not be able to get rid of a damaged image.
Paris 2024, who wanted “breaking the codes” and show off “exemplary”, is overtaken by the scandals that have marred the recent editions of the Olympic Games. The president of Rio 2016 was sentenced to thirty years in prison for, among other charges, “corruption” and “criminal organization”. In Japan, a former official of the organization of the Games was arrested in February in a case of rigged tenders and two former officials of a sponsor were sentenced in May to suspended prison sentences. in connection with a corruption case.
The Paris 2024 teams were warned. Organizing the Olympics puts you in the spotlight. Mediapart had, in an article in 2017, revealed a situation of conflict of interest before the designation of Paris as host city. The French Anti-Corruption Agency had alerted in a report written in early 2021 on “risks of breach of probity” and of ” conflicts of interest “.
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