French Grand Prix organisation disbanding postponed over 27m Euros debt

The Public Interest Group that oversaw the running of the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard was due to be dissolved by its board of directors on December 14th.

However, the legal end to this PIG has not gone ahead due to discussions regarding its accounts, with protests from members of the board and stakeholders regarding the management of the business.

The dissolution has not gone ahead, and has been postponed indefinitely in order to look into a financial deficit of more than €27 million.

Senator for Moselle, Jean-Louis Masson, said some investigations are required to figure out where the deficit stems from.

"We are talking about public money, we are accountable to our constituents", Masson said, as quoted by the French subsidiary of Motorsport.com.

"It wouldn't have been responsible to do it without knowing where the millions of deficit are."

The debate centres around the absence of a 'certain number of requested documents', as well as the provisional sharing of the reimbursement of the sum between various interested parties: the PACA region, the Toulon-Provence-Mediterranean metropolises, Nice Cote d'Azur, and Aix-Marseilles-Provence, amongst others.

Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice and the chief promoter, has chosen to postpone the dissolution, pending receipt and analysis of all the documents requested by the various parties.

This process, which could take up to several months, will be presented before a new board of directors, who will then have to dissolve the PIG for good, with an independent liquidator required.

The French GP returned to the calendar in 2018, with Paul Ricard hosting a race until 2022 - the circuit has not been included on the 2023 calendar.