Police officers have raided the headquarters of the 2024 Paris Olympics organisers as part of an anti-corruption investigation.
A Paris 2024 spokesperson said on Tuesday morning: “A police search is currently under way at the headquarters of the Organising Committee. Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigators to facilitate their inquiries.”
The search was ordered by France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s office, and began soon after 9am.
An official with the financial prosecutor's office said the searches are linked to two investigations based on information provided by an anti-corruption agency.
One of the probes was opened in 2017 - the year Paris was chosen by the IOC as 2024 host - into suspected embezzlement of public funds and favouritism, and concerns about an unspecified contract agreed by the Paris organisers, the prosecutor's office said.
The other was opened in 2022 following an audit by the French anti-corruption agency.
The Olympics will be held in Paris over July and August next year, with Paralympic Games taking place between August and September.
The prosecutor's office said that case targets suspected conflict of interest and favouritism involving several contracts agreed by the organising committee and Solideo, the company in charge of Olympic facilities.
The raids unfolded at the same time as the IOC executive board began a two-day meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, expecting to praise Paris organisers for their progress.
IOC president Thomas Bach told reporters early on Monday that the meeting "of course will be about Paris, where we have some good news after the visit of the co-ordination mission and after my visit to France, to President (Emmanuel) Macron, and also the organising committee."
The IOC said it expects to release a statement on Tuesday about the raids in Paris ahead of a previously scheduled online news briefing once its meeting has closed for the day.
Paris becomes the third straight Summer Games organiser implicated in investigations led by anti-corruption authorities in the French capital.
Vote-buying allegations linked to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Games previously removed several members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from that organisation.
