120 days before the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Games, the subject should no longer be in the news. Four months before the deadline, it should already be about sport, or at least the preparation of the sites and the decor.
But an issue of the TV show Complément d'enquête, broadcast this Thursday March 28 on France 2, relaunches the debate on the budget of the COJO Paris 2024. With a spotlight on the salaries of the organizing committee teams, which Tony Estanguet and his close guard would have done well without, attacking the last lap before the delivery of the event.
Having had access to a 106-page internal budget note dated December 11, 2023, intended for the COJO board of directors, the public audiovisual group's investigation reveals the overall payroll of the organizing committee since its creation. It amounts to 584,8 million euros.
A little more than half a billion euros, therefore, for a staff whose first employees were hired at the end of 2017, a few months after the IOC session awarded the Games to the french capital. There were around thirty of them then. Very soon there will be around 4.000.
In a budget whose latest version amounts to 4,4 billion euros, the sum is not extravagant. Michaël Aloïsio, Deputy Director General of the COJO, explains it : “When you organize the Olympic Games, you need the best experts in the world, and so it is not abnormal that our main item of expenditure is on this expertise. » Not false. But, more embarrassing for a team regularly praising its cost control, the payroll turns out to be 115 million euros higher than the amount displayed in the application phase.
Another document used by Complément d'enquête, a pre-report from the Court of Auditors dated March 2021, details the salary scale of COJO leaders. It reveals that 13 directors are paid 153.000 euros gross annually, and that eight executive directors are paid more than 200.000 euros. The salary of the general director, Etienne Thobois, is also highlighted: 260.000 euros per year.
So far, nothing very new. And not really something to howl at the wolves. The COJO is destined to disappear, and with it the jobs of directors, many of whom have abandoned more permanent positions. Above all, the organizing committee operates with a budget made up of 96% private money. The salaries of its staff are therefore not taken from public funds.
But, more embarrassingly, the broadcast of France 2 ensures that certain management salaries have increased, sometimes significantly, during the year 2023. A period where the COJO has nevertheless regularly repeated tightening all the bolts to stay on target with its budget, despite inflation galloping.
At the top of the list, the communications director, Anne Descamps. Her salary would have increased by 45.000 euros.Claudia Rouaux, the deputy for Ille-et-Vilaine, is surprised in Complément d'enquête. " There is even a communications director who sees her salary increase from 150 to 195.000 euros per year. You realize ? ",notes the elected socialist as if she were discovering the facts, while she has been sitting on the remuneration committee of the COJO Paris 2024 since last September.
On this specific case, the COJO explains and assumes responsibility. It mentions parity, one of the key words of the Paris 2024 Games, the first where the number of medals will be identical for men and women. “ We had a subject that is particularly close to our hearts: that of equal pay, defends the organizing committee. Our remuneration committee had alerted us to certain female profiles which were not up to the best salaries. This situation was therefore corrected with the promotion of this director as executive director. And the amount of salary associated with this function (195.000 euros per year) is commensurate with the responsibilities of this type of position. »
But Claudia Rouaux insists: “ The Olympics are supposed to be a popular time. There are 40 000 volunteers because the COJO did not, a priori, have the means to pay too many employees. Volunteers must travel and accommodate at their own expense. So, it's going to cost them money... When I make the parallel with all these remunerations for the organizers, I'm shocked! »
Coincidentally with the calendar, Tony Estanguet was heard on Wednesday March 27 before a parliamentary committee. The president of the OCOG patiently explained the why and how of a file that he would like to put away for good, and be able to concentrate on the essential, the delivery of the Games. “The amount of the payroll, 584 million euros, represents 13% of the committee's budget, rather lower compared to the last organizing committee of the Games (Tokyo 2020) and many companies, he responded to parliamentarians. This team is being asked to do what has never been done in this country. (…) This was supervised by experts who validated a remuneration scale. » End of the story ? Not sure.
