It is a long and painful soap opera in which the world of French sport rushes. And you had to be really very naive to hope for a outcome on Wednesday at the press conference of Didier Gailhaguet, president of a French ice sports federation (FFSG) under pressure after the call for resignation launched at the start by Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu. No, no and no, the one accused of having covered the dark acts of his teenage friend Gilles Beyer, accused of rape by the former champion Sarah Abitbol, will not leave the ship.
"Didier will never give up. I'll even tell you something: he takes a kind of unhealthy pleasure in finding himself in this situation, describes one of his enemies in the world of skating. We handed him microphones and gave him his sales pitch by sending the pressure back to each other. It's almost admirable to watch. "
For almost an hour and a half, in front of nearly fifty journalists, Gailhaguet proceeded with his arguments, sometimes assisted by his lawyer Guy Paris. His gimmick? "I made mistakes, not mistakes," slips the man who said "dirty by shabby".
VIDEO. Sexual violence: Gailhaguet denies having “committed a fault”
The faults, he refers them to others. To Marie-George Buffet, Minister of Sports from 1997 to 2002, whose administration is accused of having given Gilles Beyer a professional card to supervise internships with minors. To the current portfolio manager Roxana Maracineanu, “moralizing minister”. And to the father of one of his opponents, Gwendal Peizerat, "secretary general at the time of the events". He claims to have himself asked at the time for an investigation into Beyer from the Ministry of Sports and to have brought into his federation the association Colossus with feet of clay, which fights against pedophilia.
The administrative investigation and the withdrawal of the delegation have not been launched
The latter's formal denial was only the first of the responses to its spikes. Indignant, Gwendal Peizerat rose up against attacks on a deceased father. Contacted by Le Parisien, Marie-George Buffet also replied: "An investigation can only be opened by the general inspection of the ministry, under the direct responsibility of the minister," she insists. Gilles Beyer's professional card? The Sports Ministry says it won't find a trace of it today. Contacted in the evening, his Flying French club - which officially excluded him on Tuesday - was unable to confirm the existence of this document.
The rest of the series will now be linked to two initiatives launched by the Ministry of Sports: the administrative investigation and the withdrawal of the ministry's delegation to the FFSG, which notably enables it to organize its competitions. According to our information, neither of the two was launched before Didier Gailhaguet's press conference. This means that the fifteen-day deadline for the delegation's file has not yet started. "I am not sure that the Council of State validates this withdrawal" launched his lawyer, Guy Paris.
Gailhaguet only surrounded by his last faithful
"On paper, the Minister has the power to withdraw this delegation after consulting the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF)," said Antoine Semeria, a lawyer specializing in sports law. The ministry relies on article R 131-31 of the Sporting Code which grants it this option in the event of an attack on public order or public morality.
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“On this issue, we can consider that there is an attack on public morals. And what matters is the moment when the infringement takes place, not the facts, ”insists Me Semeria. In the entourage of the Minister, we assure that the withdrawal of the delegation is not linked to the only resignation of Didier Gailhaguet.
“I question the functioning of this federation, insists Roxana Maracineanu. Numerous testimonies which have gone back to us and facts exposed in the press, not by me but by sportsmen who live in this federation, make us think that there are dysfunctions in this federation. It seems difficult to remedy this if we do not touch the governance of this federation. "
Didier Gailhaguet, he remains unperturbed. Even if Tuesday evening, four members of the executive office preferred to resign. Here he is only surrounded by his last faithful.