in the Assembly, Tony Estanguet debunks the “big salaries” file of the Organizing Committee – Libération

On the eve of the broadcast of the program “Complément d’investigation” devoted to the budget of the Olympic Games, the president of Cojo justified the level of remuneration of its directors during a hearing before the Committee on Cultural and Sports Affairs.

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This doesn’t have to happen very often. Thanks to a long-planned hearing at the National Assembly, Tony Estanguet had the opportunity, this Wednesday, March 27, to debunk a new controversy over the remuneration of members of the Olympic Organizing Committee (Cojo) of Paris 2024 even before the broadcast of a program dedicated to the “slippages” of the Olympic budget. Even if Estanguet displayed Olympian calm before the Cultural and Sports Affairs Committee, Cojo took care to prepare an hour of “questions and answers” ​​with its employees on Friday “following the broadcast of Complément d’investigation”.

Since Tuesday evening, the France 2 investigative program has been distilling elements of its report focusing in particular on the remuneration of certain Cojo managers. The investigation is based on an internal budgetary note, sent in December to the Cojo board of directors and “detailing in detail the expenses of the committee, in particular the budget devoted to the overall payroll for the entire duration of the organization of the Games “. For the period 2017-2024, this payroll is estimated at 584.8 million euros.

“International experts”

A figure that Tony Estanguet, particularly attacked over the salaries of Olympic managers by socialist and environmentalist deputies, absolutely does not dispute. “The mentioned amounts of 584 million euros are correct and this represents 13% of the Cojo budget, which is rather lower compared to the last Olympic Games organizing committees,” he explained to the parliamentary committee. . Cojo has a budget of 4.4 billion euros, made up of 96% private money, to which is added the budget of Solideo, responsible for building the permanent structures, of around 4.4 billion euros. also including 1.7 billion in public money.

In its report, Complément d’investigation indicates that certain salaries were very significantly increased at the end of 2023, in particular that of the director of Olympic communications, Anne Descamps. In total, the show calculates that the payroll has increased by 115 million euros compared to what was announced in the Paris 2024 application file. If we want the best, we have to pay the price, argued in substance Tony Estanguet. “What is being asked of this team is to do what has never been done in this country,” he defended in the Assembly, praising a leadership composed of “international experts” with “extremely sought-after know-how and skills”.

“What is practiced on the market”

As when publishing information on his salary this fall, the president of Cojo brandished his totem of immunity: Paris 2024 has an independent Compensation Committee chaired by the former boss of the La Poste group, Jean-Paul Bailly, who “validated a salary scale based on the skills sought and in relation to what is practiced on the market”.

And if the payroll has moved in relation to the application file (like the overall Olympic budget), it is because in the meantime, argues the former Olympic champion, four new sports have been integrated into the program and the ceremony of opening was scheduled in the center of Paris, which required new hires for these new files. Between 2017 and the start of the Games, Cojo will have grown from around thirty to nearly 4,000 employees.

“Not the party of favoritism”

Tony Estanguet also explained that the increases denounced by Complément d’investigation were partly revaluations to keep up with inflation. That they had benefited “in priority to low salaries and not to top managers” and that there had, in fact, been recent readjustments to respect gender equality and “put in place good practices in matters of wage policy”.

The socialist deputy Claudia Rouaux, member of the Cultural Affairs Committee of the Assembly and member of the famous Cojo Remuneration Committee, participated in the program Complément d’investigation. She talks about salary increases “for the majority between 7 and 10% […] but some make jumps of 15,000 euros over a year… Others see themselves increased by an additional 32,000 euros… There is even a communications director who sees her salary increase from 150,000 to 195,000 euros annually! You realize ?” “There is a lot of pressure on your shoulders, so I hope they are as strong as those of the athletes preparing for the Paris Games, but it is clear that our confidence is crumbling over the course of the controversies,” thundered this Wednesday the environmentalist deputy Jean-Claude Raux. The JOP must be a celebration but not a celebration of favoritism or public money poured down the drain.”

Even marginal, even framed, these revelations come at a bad time when Cojo seems to be having difficulty closing its budget. In particular, he asked the Ile-de-France region if it could financially support the travel of 200,000 accredited people (athletes, officials, journalists, etc.), i.e. a budget of just under 10 million euros. And, for cost reasons, the press center for the Paralympics will ultimately be installed at the Cojo headquarters and not at the Olympic aquatic center.