New affair at the Paris 2024 OCOG. L’Equipe reports that a former employee of the organizing committee has lodged a complaint with the French National Financial Prosecutor (PNF). The complaint targets the COJO’s deputy general manager, Michaël Aloïsio. Sébastien Chesbeuf, the complainant, is accusing him of favoritism and influence peddling in connection with the PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur) region’s bid to host the Winter Games in 2030. The complaint was filed on August 23. It is currently being analyzed by the PNF. Sébastien Chesbeuf left the COJO in 2020 and has remained on very bad terms with its management ever since, mainly with Michaël Aloïsio. In this capacity, he collaborated with the Keneo company on an initial study into the feasibility of the PACA region bidding for the 2030 Winter Games. So far, nothing very confrontational. But in his complaint, Sébastien Chesbeuf accuses Michaël Aloïsio of having intervened with the cabinet of the region’s president, Renaud Muselier, to keep him away from a second, more in-depth study of the Olympic project. Still according to the plaintiff, the COJO’s number 3 had encouraged the region to do business instead with another company heavily involved in the sector, RNK, co-founded at the end of 2020 by Édouard Donnelly, the current COJO Paris 2024 operations director. According to Thomas Hollande, Sébastien Chesbeuf’s lawyer, Michaël Aloïsio’s intervention caused “serious prejudice” to his client by keeping him out of a contract. Questioned last June at a press briefing on the PNF’s initial investigations into suspicions of favoritism and illegal interest-taking at the COJO, Michaël Aloïsio explained that he had indeed exchanged information with the PACA region, but only in the context of “sharing experiences“.
