Not yet in the place, but already unwelcome. Less than two years before the Paris 2024 Games, an alleged partner of the organizing committee is being singled out by an international animal rights organization. With the IOC in the role of witness.
The American organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the largest association for the defense of animal rights in the world, with 3 million members, announces that it has written a very official letter to Thomas Bach. She asks the IOC President to intervene in the negotiations between the OCOG Paris 2024 and its presumed future new premium partner, LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton).
The approach is not common. Certainly, the name of the French group owned by billionaire Bernard Arnault is regularly cited as the next of the leading partners of the COJO Paris 2024. But its arrival at the top of the pyramid has not yet been made official. PETA therefore wants to take the lead, by putting the IOC and its president in the loop.
« In response to reports that LVMH – parent company of Louis Vuitton and Fendi – is set to become an official sponsor of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, writes the NGO based in Virginia, PETA sent today a letter to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, urging him to only greenlight LVMH's sponsorship if the luxury giant commits to stopping selling exotic fur and skins because production of these items is not only atrociously cruel to animals, but also poses a significant risk of triggering a new zoonotic pandemic. »
The letter is signed Mimi Bekhechi, the vice-president of PETA. “ LVMH has so far failed to act responsibly and continues to endanger public health with its mink coats and python bags, suggests the Briton, in charge of the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. We all know the terrible impact that COVID-19 has had on billions of lives around the world, so it would be unacceptable for the next Olympic Games to be sponsored by a company that supports these dangerous industries"
The American organization explains that outbreaks of COVID-19 affecting animals and workers have appeared on fur farms in several countries, including France, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United States.
PETA reveals that its Asian branch has conducted an investigation into two Indonesian slaughterhouses which supply LVMH. It shows workers hitting pythons in the head, then hanging them and shoving pipes down their throats to fill them with water, “ which makes it easier to remove their skin“. The same PETA Asia investigation claims that rabbits were clubbed and chinchillas electrocuted for their fur.
Finally, the American NGO recalls that several other brands in the luxury industry, including Chanel, Burberry, Calvin Klein and Victoria Beckham, have banned fur and exotic skins from their collections.
The PETA affair reminds us of another. In June 2019, the Total group gave up joining the COJO Paris 2024 marketing program. The oil and gas giant was announced as a premium partner of the Olympic and Paralympic event, with a contract estimated at more than 100 million euros.
But its CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, threw in the towel after an interview at the end of May 2019 with Anne Hidalgo. However, the contract seemed almost signed. But the mayor of Paris vetoed it. She wrote to the OCOG to remind that the Paris 2024 Games must be “ copies » in terms of respect for the environment. “ It would be very difficult for our fellow citizens to understand if companies were selected whose activity would have a heavy impact on the environment, based in particular on the massive use of carbon-based energies.“, suggested Anne Hidalgo in her letter to Tony Estanguet.
