The raid came 24 hours after the headquarters of Paris 2024 and Solideo, the company responsible for the construction of Olympic sites, was targeted by the PNF.

The search of the premises of Keneo, in the centre of Paris, began this morning and ended early afternoon, according to news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

It is part of an investigation into contracts awarded for the Games, opened in 2017 by the PNF and entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses.

This investigation concerns a series of contracts awarded by, among others, the Paris 2024 Organising Committee and the Bid Committee, which preceded it and was also led by Thobois.

Alleged offences include illegal taking of interests, embezzlement of public funds, favouritism and trying to conceal it.

In May 2017, four months before Paris was awarded the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, records revealed that Keneo had received €2 million (£1.7 million/$2.2 million) in contracts linked to the bid, while there were potential conflicts of interest between the team responsible for preparing the French candidacy and the consultancy firm.

At the time, Thobois defended the links with Keneo, which he had founded in 2008 and revealed he had sold his shares in the company shortly before being appointed chief executive of Paris 2024 in July 2015.

Edouard Donnelly, who founded Keneo with Thobois, continued to be involved with the company until 2018.

But, in 2016, after Thobois had left, Keneo was bought by Japanese marketing company Dentsu.

Donnelly then set up a new company, RNK, specialising in the development of sports events, before joining Paris 2024 in November 2022 as the executive director of operations

RNK is part of a group of companies that has won contract to organise the Olympic Torch Relay.

At the end of last year, Paris 2024 officials told its Ethics Committee had found nothing wrong with possible conflicts of interest.

Donnelly had been asked to sell his shares in RNK and not deal with contracts for which his former companies might apply.

According to AFP, RNK is not being targeted by either of the two ongoing investigations.

Thobois, a former badminton player who represented France at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, was also a technical consultant for a Tokyo 2020

His role included setting the budget, which rose significantly after the Japanese capital was awarded the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

"We opened all our archives," Vincent Batigne, who bought Keneo from Dentsu in 2021, told AFP.

"Keneo currently has no contract to date with the OCOG (Olympic Organising Committee for the Olympic Games) and no longer any link with Etienne Thobois and Edouard Donnelly."

Paris 2024 is the third consecutive Olympic Games linked to corruption following Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.

Dentsu, the former owners of Keneo, are among several Japanese companies implicated in the rigging of contracts worth $320 million (£251 million/€291 million) at Tokyo 2020.