After more than a year and a half of crisis, the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) will choose a new president on Thursday, a duel between David Lappartient and Emmanuelle Bonnet-Oulaldj, the president of the UCI starting favorite to relaunch an institution traumatized nearly a year before the Paris Olympics.
If the bad soap opera has officially ended since the surprise resignation of Brigitte Henriques on May 25, the epilogue of a crisis that some thought was endless after months of infighting and clan wars, a new page remains to be written.
On Thursday, the 48 members of the CNOSF board of directors will therefore officially register the departure of the former president of the FFF, and proceed immediately to the election of their new leader. Mr. Lappartient confronts Ms. Bonnet-Oulaldj, the co-president of the Gymnastics Federation of Labor (FSGT).
The mandate of the new president will then have to be confirmed by a vote of a general meeting convened on September 13 and will end at the end of the current mandate in 2025.
Only two candidates have entered the arena, two candidates with styles, backgrounds and DNA that almost everything opposes.
“Reporting Anticor”
“It’s a duel which basically is quite interesting. The thing is that a president who is not from an Olympic federation has very little chance of passing, ”assures a source close to the mysteries of sport.
Member of the IOC, president of the UCI and incidentally mayor of Sarzeau and president of the general council of Morbihan, David Lappartient, 50, offers for some the pledge of solidity.
“After such a crisis, it is still an opportunity not to be missed. He is serious, knows the environment perfectly, knows what he has to do. There are the Olympics in a year, we must not waste any more time, ”sums up a federation president.
During this express campaign, several press articles scratched his image, in particular two papers from the World evoking controversial links with the Russian-Turkmen oligarch Igor Makarov, or another pointing to the accumulation of the mandates of the president of the UCI – who exercises ten political and sporting mandates -, and reporting a report from Anticor.
This report made to the prosecutor concerns contracts awarded by the Morbihan regional national park (PNR) of which David Lappartient is president, with a company whose manager is the ex-husband of its ex-director. “I was unaware of this family link”, defended David Lappartient in an email sent to members of the CNOSF whoseFrance Media Agency became aware, recognizing “an error”.
“Nothing seems to have to be spared,” he added in this email following the publication of this article. “I did not think that the election to the presidency of the CNOSF would trigger such a passion that I admit not having known in my public engagement until now”, he had assured.
The Breton city councilor has in any case not deviated from his line. During the presentation of his program to the administrators of the CNOSF on Tuesday, he promised “gathering and unity”, and undertook “to reduce the sails significantly” as to his many activities to be able to ensure a future mandate. .
“Don’t take risks”
Opposite, Emmanuelle Bonnet-Oulaldj, 44, who embodies a completely different side of sport, that of associations, and who had obtained 17% of the vote in the previous election in June 2021.
If she also intends to bring back “unity” within the CNOSF by ensuring a “peaceful” future governance, she has distinguished herself from her rival by promising a “full-time” presidency, referring to societal and social issues in which the Olympic Committee will have to get involved.
“Except that the world of French Olympism is not necessarily receptive to these themes”, sums up a political source.
“She will get about fifteen votes in my opinion, which is already very good. In fact, there is not really any suspense. A priori the administrators should make the choice of Lappartient, even if he did not convince them all 100%. But one year before the Olympics, the fact of not taking risks will play a big role for him, ”assures this source.