searches at the headquarters of the Organizing Committee and in event agencies responsible for the opening ceremonies – Libération

Oclciff investigators searched the premises of the organizing committee and those of the Double 2, Ubibene, Obo and Paname 24 companies in charge of the opening ceremonies on Wednesday October 19, as part of a new investigation carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office. national financial institution (PNF).

New shock for Paris 2024, which is faltering nine months before the Games. The organizing committee of the Paris Olympics and the event agencies responsible for the opening ceremonies of the planetary meeting next summer were raided on Wednesday as part of a new investigation carried out by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), according to several sources close to the matter.

According to these sources, Cojo and the companies Double 2, Ubibene, Obo and Paname 24 received a visit from sleuths from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff). Paris 2024 confirms with Libération that the PNF presented itself at its headquarters this Wednesday, “and obtained all the information it requested. Paris 2024 is fully collaborating with the investigation as it has always done.

“No police custody took place”, specifies another judicial source, according to which “these operations take place within the framework of a preliminary investigation led by the PNF into the counts of illegal taking of interest, favoritism and concealment concerning several markets linked to the 2024 Olympic Games, opened after the searches of June 20, 2023″, date on which several sites, including the organizing committee, had already been searched as part of other investigations opened by the PNF.

The torch relay also targeted by the investigation

These first operations before the summer were carried out as part of two other investigations also led by the PNF and also relating to suspicions of favoritism and misappropriation of public funds during the award of contracts by Cojo and Solideo, the establishment responsible for the construction of the Olympic works. In these two procedures, investigators are interested in around twenty potentially contentious contracts, according to a source close to the investigation.

But this time, as confirmed by one of the sources close to the matter, the new procedure targets in particular the emblematic opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, carefully scheduled for July 26, 2024 on the Seine, as well as that of the Paralympic Games on August 28. at the bottom of Avenue des Champs-Elysées and Place de la Concorde. Indeed, the companies Double 2, Ubi Bene and Obo are part of the quintet of French event production agencies united under the Paname 2024 pavilion and responsible for these opening ceremonies.

Unprecedented on a river and outside a stadium, the July 26 ceremony is an organizational and security challenge, and its artistic aspect is ultra-confidential. Hundreds of thousands of spectators on site but also 1.5 billion viewers are expected, Thierry Reboul, director of Cojo ceremonies, reminded the press in mid-September. According to the source close to the matter, several other markets are also targeted by this investigation, including that of another emblematic event, the Olympic torch relay.

“The border between endogamy and conflict of interest is at the center of the investigations”

In an article from December 2022, the online media Mediapart had highlighted the risk of conflicts of interest for Thierry Reboul, since 2018 executive director of ceremonies, events and the Paris 2024 brand and conductor of this ambitious project. He previously managed the events company Ubi Bene, founded in 2000, before joining Cojo.

At the time, on CB News, the man said that he had been asked to “put aside (his) greatest adventure for another perhaps even more beautiful, that of the games in Paris”. “I couldn’t say no,” he then justified, announcing that he had sold his shares in the events company. Ubi Bene then joined forces with other event agencies to form this Paname 24 consortium, responsible for organizing the opening ceremonies. “Organizing major sporting events is a small world. The border between endogamy and conflict of interest is at the center of the investigations and depends on the assessment,” recently noted a source close to the matter.

In addition to these procedures, the PNF has also been investigating since September to verify accusations of favoritism against the deputy general director of Cojo, Michaël Aloïsio, after the complaint of a former employee, Sébastien Chesbeuf, denouncing favoritism and drug trafficking. influence in the award of a public contract with the Paca region. The financial prosecutor’s office also opened a procedure in July to verify the conditions under which a former Bercy inspector would have rented family chalets in the Alps to Solideo, which he was responsible for controlling.