PARIS -- Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the motor behind the French capital's failed bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, on Monday accused British authorities of breaking IOC rules to clinch victory for London.
However, French IOC member Jean-Clause Killy said the Paris bid had been weakened from the inside. He said he was "sickened" by the complaints.
Killy pointed to the last-minute loss of Foreign Minister Michel Barnier -- who long worked with the Olympics but was replaced in a June government change. And he made a veiled suggestion that remarks by President Jacques Chirac in 2003 had so upset eastern European nations that it would be hard for them to vote for France.
The IOC last Wednesday voted for London over Paris -- considered the favorite -- and Delanoe said British Prime Minister Tony Blair and London bid leader Sebastian Coe had breached a "formal ban on criticizing other candidates."
"They crossed the yellow line with respect to the IOC rules," Delanoe told France-Info radio Monday after a meeting of the Paris city council. "Both Mr. Blair and Mr. Coe crossed the line."
Delanoe, a socialist, was criticized by the conservative party's Claude Goasguen for not explaining his accusations.
"If the English cheated, you have to say how," Goasguen told France-3 television. "It's not at all appropriate to vaguely say that the English had an attitude that doesn't fit with the Olympic ideal."
On Saturday, IOC president Jacques Rogge said none of the cities broke rules designed to stamp out corruption in the bidding process. He sought to end to criticism of Blair's involvement in the London bid.
Paris bidders were angry that Blair had reportedly met with IOC members in his hotel room in Singapore and made veiled suggestions that the British prime minister's lobbying tactics crossed the line of correct behavior.
"There's nothing wrong with having a conversation with a major politician from a bid city," Rogge said. "Mr. Blair never asked a (IOC) member to become a member of the Labour Party."
Rogge said none of the cities broke rules designed to stamp out corruption in the bid process even if "sometimes they were close to the limits."
Killy, a former Olympic ski champion, said Paris shouldn't "look for pitiful excuses."
"Imagine trying to obtain today the votes of the east. It's really not easy," he said in an implicit reference to Chirac's criticism of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic for supporting Washington in 2003 ahead of the invasion of Iraq.
Chirac said it was "not very responsible" or "well bred" of them to do so, adding that "I think they missed a good chance to shut up."
France had supported their bids to join the European Union, which they did last year.
He said that Barnier, the former foreign minister, had been "one of the best known and most respected French with the IOC." Barnier organized French winter Olmpics and worked with the IOC from 1981-1992, Killy said.
He added that France has no "international sports presence."
