reports warn of possible financial slippage

July 24. The first events of the Olympic Games launch Paris 2024. Less than 48 hours before the opening ceremony, the 142^e IOC session elects the French Alps 2030 as host region for the XXVI Olympic Winter Games. For the fourth time, the first in 38 years since Albertville 1992.

A sesame after an express application (the application file was officially submitted on November 7, 2023). A “conditional” allocation, suspended from the financial guarantee of the State. With a deadline of 1^is november. Gabriel Attal hesitates, plays for time. It is ultimately Michel Barnier who will sign. One day after the deadline expired…

That’s it for the frame. The forecast budget is, according to L’Équipe, around 2.3 billion euros for the organizing committee, an amount to which must be added nearly 1 billion euros for Solideo (the company delivering the works Olympics). But according to France Info, two reports from the IGF (General Inspectorate of Finance) cast a shadow over the whole thing, revealing: “ A Cojop Alpes 2030 budget which promises to be heavily in deficit (…) The deficit forecast turns out to be optimistic and must be re-evaluated. » Then : ” Cojop’s forecast result immediately presents an imbalance, which the mission estimates at between 850 and 900 million euros (M€), to be covered by public authorities. »

Furthermore, the IOC is getting impatient. The project, still led by Renaud Muselier (president of the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region) and Laurent Wauquiez (special advisor to the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region) still does not have a president at the head of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. To carry out the project successfully, a Michel Barnier-Martin Fourcade ticket would, according to Le Parisien, have been mentioned for the first months of Cojop. It would recall a prestigious tandem, the one composed of the former Prime Minister and Jean-Claude Killy at the helm during the Albertville Olympic Games in 1992 (and the one composed of Tony Estanguet with Bernard Lapasset at the start of the Paris adventure 2024).

Five months after the smiles and hugs of award day, clouds darken the first steps of the 2030 Winter Games.