French hotel owners attacked Airbnb on Wednesday over its new partnership with the International Olympics Committee, with some promising an ethics complaint against the deal with the US home-sharing giant.
"Airbnb doesn't play by the rules, and must be disqualified," the GNI association of independent hotels said in a statement during an industry gathering in the Atlantic coast resort town of Biarritz.
French hotels have long accused Airbnb of unfair competition by operating with only cursory regulatory oversight, and have been lobbying authorities for a crackdown on short-term tourist rentals.
The GNI said it would file a protest with the IOC's ethics commission, as well as the organising committee for the 2024 summer Games in Paris.
"This partnership is inappropriate and it is outrageous to make this company, which spurs deregulation in countries around the world, a global partner of the IOC," said the heads of the UMIH, the main trade group for French hotels, and the GCN alliance of chain hotels.
The UMIH sued Airbnb in June 2018 for "knowingly violating" rules imposed as part of a crackdown in one of the US giant's biggest markets.
Paris alone has 65,000 listings on Airbnb, and there are thousands more in the nearby suburbs that will house many of the venues for the 2024 Olympics.
- 'Where is the morality?'-
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"Where is the morality?" UMIH president Roland Heguy told AFP. "We worked since the beginning on this candidacy with the Paris 2024 organising committee."