The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation to verify accusations of favoritism against the Deputy Director General of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJO) of Paris 2024, Michaël Aloïsio, announced Thursday September 14 at the Agence France-Presse (AFP) a judicial source, confirming information from The Team.
The prosecutors opened this investigation ” last week “, according to this same source, and carry out the investigations themselves, without contacting an investigating service. They are looking at the elements reported in the complaint, filed at the end of August for favoritism and influence peddling, by Sébastien Chesbeuf, a former employee of the COJO – with whom he is in conflict –, now a consultant for the organization of sporting events.
Mr. Chesbeuf denounces the conditions for awarding a public contract issued in 2023 by the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) region to constitute its pre-candidacy file for the 2030 Winter Olympics, and accuses Michaël Aloïsio for having favored another agency founded by a current Paris 2024 executive.
Two ongoing investigations at the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office
Sébastien Chesbeuf ures that while he was working as a consultant with the sports marketing event company Keneo Michaël Aloïsio intervened with the office of the president of the PACA region, Renaud Muselier, to dissuade him from working with them and favor the company RNK , a company co-founded in late 2020 by Edouard Donnelly. The latter left the company in November 2022 when he joined the COJO as executive director of operations, raising suspicions of a conflict of interest.
At the end of August, Michaël Aloïsio had “strongly refuted” from AFP “the slanderous accusations of Mr. Chesbeuf, who has been in conflict with Paris 2024 since his dismissal” in 2020. According to him, “exchanges with the PACA region are part of sharing experiences” with a view to their future candidacy for 2030.
Two separate investigations into suspicions of favoritism, illegal taking of interests and misappropriation of public funds during the awarding of contracts for the Olympic Games are already underway at the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office.
The World with AFP