PARIS, (Reuters) – French sports minister Amelie Oudea Castera says she is not too concerned by the investigations into alleged corruption surrounding the Paris 2024 Olympics, which took a new turn as two top officials were targeted by police searches yesterday.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Paris 2024 director general Etienne Thobois and executive director of Games operations Edouard Donnelly were subject to searches.
The source would not specify whether it was their homes that had been searched. On Tuesday, the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics organising committee and those of its infrastructure partner were searched by police as part of investigations into alleged embezzlement of public funds and favouritism, prosecutors said.
The national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF) said the Paris 2024 headquarters were raided amid a preliminary investigation launched in 2017 into contracts made by the Summer Games’ organising committee.
The headquarters of SOLIDEO, the public body responsible for delivering Olympic and Paralympic infrastructure, were also being searched amid a preliminary investigation dating back to 2022, following an audit by the French Anti-Corruption Agency, the PNF added.
“I have no specific concerns, the teams have cooperated fully with the investigation services, there are… a whole series of checks that have already been carried out by the Cour des Comptes (France’s supreme audit court), by the French anti-corruption agency, I think that overall, we have a governance that is quite exemplary,” Oudea Castera told Reuters after a ceremony presenting the Olympic flame relay at the Sorbonne university yesterday.
“Now it’s time for the investigators to do their job, for the investigation to move forward, and for us to let the organising committee and its partner (SOLIDEO) to do their work in peace.”
The Olympics will take place from July 26-Aug. 11.
