While the very important European Championships in Montpellier (November 3-5) are looming in view of the future Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Clarisse Agbégnénou finds herself having to manage a dispute surrounding an apartment she rents in Maisons- Alfort, in Val-de-Marne. An apartment where, since 2015, a woman, presented as a childhood friend of the judokate, and her three children have lived. The cause of the dispute? The unsanitary conditions of the premises, including a humidity level exceeding 75% according to the municipal services, which came to carry out measurements. Which could be the cause of the health problems of two of the children, one, aged 6, suffering from numerous episodes of bronchiolitis, while the youngest, aged 3, has to deal with sleep apnea .
High humidity that Clarisse Agbégnénou does not deny. On the other hand, what the double Tokyo Olympic champion defends herself from is having remained inactive and deaf to the problem. “I was very unhappy to see how the facts were misused,” she said this Tuesday during a press briefing at Insep. “I really am in good faith and I did everything to make this person feel good. Especially when we talk about children, I am the first concerned, so it affected me because I thought directly of my daughter. And she continued, visibly very touched: “I did everything to ensure that this went well. I hired a company to do the work, but the door was never opened. Now I hope this will be resolved very quickly, both for her and for me. Children can’t live like that, but it’s not my fault. It all started with water damage for which I was not responsible and behind it, I did everything to fix it.”
Beyond this dispute, Clarisse Agbégnénou also regretted the media coverage of the case, leading, as too often, to immediate condemnation on social networks. “I don’t like people talking badly about me if it’s unfounded,” she says, determined. “I accept all criticism, debate… People can find fault in me, we can discuss it and try to find common ground. But lying and hurting myself when I’m trying to make the person feel good bothers me a lot and I think it’s a shame that you want to burden me just because I’m a public figure. Behind, I receive messages of insults or to tell me that no one thought I was like that. But don’t think that. If you need any information, I have all the papers which show that I called on a company, and that I also called the town planning department which came by.”
Now, the judokate, to concentrate on her career, has decided to entrust the matter to a lawyer, notably by taking legal action against her tenant, claiming the sum of 5,264 euros for unpaid rent. And Clarisse Agbégnénou concludes, at least for the moment because the affair could take time before finding its epilogue: “Obviously, when you don’t know the situation, you can easily overwhelm me. But the facts have been distorted. Lying affects me. I’ve always been like that, when I was young, they called me the vigilante. I find it so disappointing to lie. But I stay upright in my sneakers and I keep moving forward. After the European Championships, if this person is finally ready to open their door, I will restart the company so that work can be done.
