A body discovered in sports equipment in Bagnolet

In Bagnolet, the time has come for astonishment after the video published on the networks Tuesday evening by the environmentalist mayor of the city of Seine-Saint-Denis Édouard Denouel. According to him, a body was recently discovered in a municipal sports facility. It could have remained there since 2025, specifies the councilor, “but the current police investigation will clarify all of this”. All city officials have been informed.

“Beyond emotion, this situation raises serious questions about the management and monitoring of our municipal equipment. How could a body have remained in a municipal sports facility for so long without anyone noticing?, he still wonders. Contacted by our colleagues from Le Parisien, Édouard Denouel specifies that the victim is a former municipal agent from Bagnolet whose death occurred in a room located at the entrance to the Rigondes municipal stadium.

The man would have worked in the town's sports department between 1997 and 2019 before resigning. Knowing the place, he could have squatted there before his death, recorded on September 17. It was city agents coming to “open premises for upcoming development work on the first floor of the building” who made the macabre discovery, says the elected official in a letter addressed to the municipality’s educational staff that Le Parisien was able to consult.

“A very serious failure”

According to this same source, the premises had until then been closed and had not been accessed for several years. On site, a bank card receipt dating from January 2025 was also found, which could guide the investigators responsible for dating the death. Concerning the causes, the mystery remains unsolved. “Two investigations, one administrative and the other judicial, are currently underway. The administrative investigation must make it possible to precisely identify the municipal failures which may have led to this situation,” assures Édouard Denouel.

For him, “this tragedy highlights what appears to be a very serious failure in the organization and operation of some of our municipal services and equipment.” For several months, the people of Bagnolet have been pointing out the maintenance of the equipment, but also the difficulties linked to their closing, opening and monitoring. In response, the mayor supported by LFI during the municipal elections last March requested “the launch of a real project to reorganize the sports service in order to review its operation and guarantee better monitoring of sports equipment”.

A meeting with all the services concerned is also planned “in order to draw all the consequences of this administrative failure and above all to put in place the measures now necessary”. However, this does not reassure the PE teachers in the town who frequently use the stadium for their educational activities. According to Le Parisien, they sent a letter to parents of students to denounce “the level of neglect” of sports equipment which “has reached a dramatic threshold”. For his part, Édouard Denouel points to the responsibility of previous mandates: “We must above all put an end to the failing system which we inherit and the true extent of which we discover every day.”