Paris 2024 Olympics organisers defended a 30% salary uplift for their communications director on Wednesday, saying the raise was correcting an unfair gender gap in her pay.
In an investigation to be aired on Thursday, French TV channel France 2 reveals that the annual salary of Anne Descamps, the Paris 2024 communications director, went up 45,000 euros to 195,000 euros last year.
"This raise happened because the person has been sitting on the executive committee for six years without having the (executive director) title and without having the corresponding salary (compared to male colleagues)," Paris 2024 chief operating officer Michael Aloisio told reporters.
"The request did not come from her."
Salaries represent about 13% of the 4.4 billion-euro Paris 2024 budget, which although comfortably below that of the Tokyo, Rio and London Summer Games, has sparked some debate in France. Only 37% of French people were looking forward to the July and August games, according to a survey this month.
French media reported earlier this year that the organising committee's president Tony Estanguet was facing a judicial investigation into his pay.
In October, authorities raided the Paris 2024 headquarters as part of an investigation into alleged favouritism that also targeted event management firms.
"What is being asked to this (Paris 2024) team is to do what has never been done in this country," Estanguet said during a hearing at the national assembly on Wednesday.
"The skills requested for this task are unprecedented. We're talking about 878 competitions across 54 sports over a short period of time."
