The French police raided the offices of the Olympic organizers in Paris and the companies involved in implementing the opening ceremony.
Agence France-Presse was the first to report the raid, which took place on Wednesday. Shortly afterwards, the French Olympic organizers themselves confirmed the visit.
“Paris 2024 confirms that the PNF (French Environmental Crime) organization visited our headquarters on Wednesday, October 18, and obtained all the information it requested,” she said in a statement.
The report also stated that “Olympic organizers are fully cooperating with the investigation, as they have done throughout.”
In this case, this is the second time in a short period that the French environmental crime organization has taken action against offices belonging to the organizers of next year’s Summer Games in Paris.
According to Agence France-Presse, investigators unexpectedly visited four specific companies on Wednesday. The measure should be part of investigations into whether there has been a violation of French regulations regarding, among other things, the preference of individual companies in market positioning.
Work in June
Also in June, French environmental criminals attacked the Olympic headquarters in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis as a result of suspected irregularities in the awarding of contracts related to the Summer Games. French organizers then confirmed the matter to Agence France-Presse.
They didn’t do that this time.
In June, an action was also implemented at Solideo, which is responsible for awarding construction tasks to the Olympic organizer.
Two years ago, two reports by the French Anti-Corruption Agency (AFA) highlighted, among other things, “conflicts of interest” that could affect the “whiter than white” image, said the president of the organizing committee, Tony Estanguette. Olympic organizers want to embellish it.
Investigators stated that the procedures used around the procurement of various services for the Summer Games were “inaccurate and incomplete,” and that conflicts of interest were not necessarily taken into account in the correct way.
Contradictions
Wednesday’s raid is the latest chapter in the drama that has surrounded French sport recently. In May, the president of the French Olympic Committee, Brigitte Henriques, surprisingly chose to resign with immediate effect.
After that, the IOC management asked all participants to contribute to ending the disagreements that characterized the committee. So far, a successor to Henriques has not been identified.
The Summer Games will be held in the French capital from July 26 to August 11 next year.
Paris was officially awarded the right to organize the Games by the International Olympic Committee Congress in Lima, Peru in 2017.
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