French skipper Kevin Escoffier, November 3, 2022 in Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine). SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS / AFP
The French Sailing Federation (FFV) had fifteen days to make a decision. It took half as much. The body announced, Friday March 22 in a press release, the cancellation of the sanction imposed on skipper Kevin Escoffier – suspended after accusations of sexual violence – due to a ” procedural defect “raised by a conciliator from the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) a week earlier.
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” The [fédération] notes that the conciliator considers that the decision of the Federal Appeal Council of the FFV is tainted by a procedural defect, because the disciplinary appeal body is accused of not having sufficiently guaranteed the principle of adversarial proceedings”she writes.
In his opinion, delivered Thursday March 15, the CNOSF conciliator – contacted by the defense of the French skipper – estimated that the disciplinary body of the federation had not “sufficiently guaranteed the principle of contradiction”, notably due to the lack of confrontation between the navigator and his accusers. What the FFV assumes to have “voluntarily excluded”, arguing for the need to “protect people who had the courage to report”.
Accused of “inappropriate behavior” and sexual assault on a young woman during a stopover in the stage race The Ocean Race, in June 2023 in the United States, the Saint-Malo skipper was suspended from all competition for eighteen months at the end of October 2023, five years suspended suspension of sports license and ten years of ineligibility in the bodies of the FFV. A sanction taken by the latter’s national disciplinary commission.
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Ousted from the Holcim-PRB team, with which he was aiming for a victory in the Vendée Globe – a solo round-the-world race on 18-meter monohulls – which will begin on November 10, 2024, the Breton skipper appealed the decision. . And his lawyer had contacted the CNOSF, whose conciliator delivered his opinion in mid-March, giving the FFV fifteen days to review its copy.
A legal investigation in progress
On Friday, the body governing French sailing accepted this conciliation proposal, “even if it regrets that a procedural flaw led to the cancellation of the disciplinary sanction imposed on Kevin Escoffier”. While welcoming that the conciliator “considers, taking into account the body of evidence brought to its attention, that the FFV was justified in initiating disciplinary proceedings”.
This decision puts an end to the disciplinary procedure initiated against the navigator, because the federation has decided not to relaunch it. Firstly in order to avoid having to organize a confrontation between Escoffier and the people who sent a report – a decision “perfectly assumed and supported by the FFV”specifies the press release, which recalls that the body relies “on the directives of the Ministry of Sports […] on this topic “. And for “not to contribute, by accepting the establishment of this confrontation, to the growing and worrying confusion between the role of a delegated sports federation, via its disciplinary power, and the role of the State, through the police and of justice, via its judicial power”.
If Kevin Escoffier’s suspension is lifted, the former shipwreck of the 2020 Vendée Globe – he had jumped into his life raft off the Cape of Good Hope, before being rescued at the last minute by another competitor, Jean Le Cam – is not yet out of the woods. The Paris public prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation in July, which has since been entrusted to the Lorient police station (Morbihan). And in its press release, the FFV insists on its “desire for the case to now be dealt with within the framework of the current criminal procedure which is based in particular” on victims’ complaints.
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