Global Courant
French detectives searched the headquarters of Paris Olympic organizers Tuesday in an investigation into suspected corruption, the national prosecutor’s office said.
The Paris organizing committee said in a statement that a search was underway at their headquarters in the suburb of Saint-Denis, and that “Paris 2024 is cooperating with the investigators to facilitate their investigation.” It declined to comment further.
Paris becomes the third consecutive Summer Games organizer to be implicated in investigations led by anti-corruption authorities in the French capital.
Allegations of vote buying in connection with the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2021 Tokyo Games previously removed several members of the International Olympic Committee of that organization.
A prosecutor’s office official said on Tuesday that the searches are related to two preliminary investigations related to the Paris Olympic Games that had not previously been made public. The official was not authorized to be named publicly under the policy of the prosecutor’s office.
According to the newspaper Le Monde, the offices of the public body responsible for the Olympic infrastructure, as well as the headquarters of several companies and consultants involved in the organization of the games, were also raided.
Paris organizers declined to comment.
One of the investigations opened in 2017 — the year Paris was selected by the IOC as the host of 2024 — into suspected misappropriation of public funds and favoritism, and concerns over an unspecified contract reached by Paris organizers, it said. parquet.
The other was opened in 2022 after an audit by the French anti-corruption agency. The prosecutor’s office said the case focuses on suspected conflicts of interest and favoritism involving several contracts between the organizing committee and Solideo, the company responsible for the Olympic facilities.
The Paris Olympic Games are scheduled for July 26-August. 11, 2024.
The raids came at the same time as the IOC’s executive board began a two-day meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, expecting to praise the Paris organizers for their progress.
IOC President Thomas Bach told reporters early Monday that the meeting “will, of course, be about Paris, where we have good news after the visit of the coordination mission and after my visit to France, to President Macron, and also to the organizing committee.”
The IOC said it expected to issue a statement on Tuesday about the Paris raids ahead of a previously scheduled online news briefing once the meeting closed for the day.
People wait outside the headquarters of the Paris Olympic organization in Saint-Denis, outside Paris, on Tuesday.Thomas Padilla/AP
While French sport triumphed on the playing field, most notably winning the 2018 FIFA World Cup, they have been rocked by multiple leadership changes ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Last month, the president of the French Olympic Committee resigned after a period of intense power struggle, prompting calls from Parisian organizers for sports leaders to put aside differences and focus on delivering the Games.
Noël Le Graët also resigned as president of the French football federation in February after a government audit found he no longer had the legitimacy to lead because of his behavior towards women and his management style. Bernard Laporte resigned as president of the French Rugby Federation in January after being convicted of corruption and illegally acquiring assets and given a suspended prison sentence.
Last October, Claude Atcher was fired as CEO of the Rugby World Cup. That event kicks off in France in September and will also serve as a test of France’s security preparations for the Olympic Games. Atcher’s removal followed an investigation by French labor inspectors into his behavior in the workplace.
