Pictures have revealed how the owners of a Swiss nightclub where dozens of people were killed in a horrific blaze on New Year’s Eve were involved in some of the works to renovate the venue a decade ago.
French couple Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica, 40, who was inside the bar when the blaze broke out and suffered burns to her arm, opened Le Constellation in December 2015 after visiting the area years earlier.
The venue, located in the centre of the Alpine town of Crans-Montana, in the Valais canton, is now at the centre of a massive police probe after it caught fire at around 1.30am local time (12.30am GMT) on Thursday morning.
The inferno killed at least 40 people and another 119 were injured – most of them in their teens and twenties with severe third-degree burns. While Swiss authorities confirmed 40 victims, the Italians said 47 were dead.
Mr Moretti, who was not in the venue, yesterday spoke out for the first time since the blaze, telling Swiss outlet 20 Minuten: ‘We can neither sleep nor eat, we are all very unwell.’
The bar owner also defended the safety of the nightclub after it emerged the venue was fitted with wooden furnishings and foam-style ceiling material and had only one narrow staircase for revellers trying to escape.
Mr Moretti claimed that the club had been inspected three times in the past 10 years, adding: ‘Everything had been done according to regulation.’
He emphasised the couple – known as powerful figures in the Swiss hospitality industry – are cooperating with authorities, adding: ‘We will do everything we can to help clarify the causes. We are doing everything in our power. Our lawyers are also involved.’
Photos have also emerged on social media showing Mr Moretti taking part in renovation works at the bar before it opened in 2015. In one image he can be seen smiling at the camera inside the building site in June that year.
Another shows the French owner – who can be seen donning a pair of blue safety gloves – watch on as a man operates a digger amid a sea of rubble the downstairs area of the club which caught fire.
Jacques Moretti, 49, who is the owner of a Swiss nightclub where dozens of people were killed in a horrific blaze on New Year’s Eve can be seen taking part in the building’s renovation works shortly after they purchased the site in 2015
The French owner – who can be seen donning a pair of blue safety gloves – watches on as a man operates a digger amid a sea of rubble the downstairs area of the club which caught fire
Images from social media show the works underway, with the panelling – which is believed to have caught fire and started the blaze – being installed on the ceiling
A photo appears to show the moment champagne sparklers set fire to material on the ceiling of the Swiss nightclub
The couple have already been questioned by authorities and may face manslaughter charges, according to Beatrice Pilloud, the attorney general for the Valais region.
Pilloud said: ‘We assume that the fire originated from sparklers attached to champagne bottles. From there, the ceiling caught fire.
‘We are also looking at what materials were used. The issue of emergency exits, fire extinguishers, and the bar’s occupancy is also being investigated.’
She added: ‘Our investigation also includes the foam on the ceiling. It is still unclear whether any individuals will face criminal charges. However, it is possible that an investigation for negligent homicide will be initiated.’
She declined to comment on whether any action would be taken to prevent the couple from fleeing Switzerland, stating: ‘There is currently no criminal liability.’
Stéphane Ganzer, the state councillor in charge of security in Valais, said he wasn’t aware of any safety deficiencies in the club, but admitted: ‘I don’t know when the municipality carried out the inspections. We haven’t received any reports of deficiencies. However, we assume that the inspections were conducted.’
Pilloud said a team of 30 are involved in the investigation, though the priority for authorities ‘remains identifying the deceased so that the families can begin their grieving process.’
Chief Inspector Pierre-Antoine Lengen said at the same press conference that another 30 people are involved in the identification process for the victims, with everyone looking at victims’ DNA and dental records, as well as items they may have been carrying before they perished.
But Lengen admitted that this process would take significant time and apologised to the families of those still waiting to hear of their loved ones’ fates.
As for those injured in the fire, Pilloud said the number of people affected may still go up, given that many of those in Le Constellation only checked themselves into hospital hours after the fire.
Jessica Moretti, 40, (pictured) was inside the bar when the blaze broke out and suffered burns to her arm
Mr and Mrs Moretti can be seen standing inside the basement of the bar as it undergoes renovation works in 2015
Images from 2015 show the panelling on the ceiling of Le Constellation bar – investigators believe this is what caught fire and started the blaze
Mr and Mrs Moretti, who have a young son, opened Le Constellation in December 2015 after falling in love with the area when they visited for a week’s holiday in 2011.
The bar with an upstairs terrace and a basement club, featuring DJs and live music, became one of the most popular nightspots in the town with a clientele of mainly young and affluent winter sports fans and locals.
According to the Crans-Montana website, the bar offered an ‘elegant space’ and a ‘festive atmosphere’ with online descriptions of it being the ‘place to be’ and popular with an international crowd.
It’s understood that it is also one of few bars in the ski resort that allows revellers who are 16 and over inside rather than having to be 18.
The bar’s success enabled Mr and Mrs Moretti to open up two other restaurants in the area, earning themselves a reputation as a hardworking and successful husband and wife team.
Mrs Moretti was inside the club when the fire took hold and was said to have suffered burns to her arm while her husband was working at one of their other establishments. The couple are said to be ‘completely in shock’, according to sources.
It also emerged that social media pages for the club on Instagram and Facebook had been deleted early today, even while victims of the blaze were still being pulled out of the wreckage of the club.
Mr Moretti told how he opened Le Constellation which was in a previously abandoned building after doing much of the building work himself over nearly six months.
Footage shows the deadly flashover, when extreme heat caused everything inside the enclosed space to ignite almost at once, that left people little chance to flee
Footage from the evening shows a brave reveller trying to put out the first flames as they spread across the wooden ceiling of the cramped basement bar in south-west Switzerland
Despite his efforts, the blaze would soon engulf the crowded basement, travel up the narrow wooden stairs and set off explosions so deafening that residents feared a terror attack
He and his wife first visited Crans-Montana in 2011, after he ‘heard about it from Swiss clients’, according to a local newspaper Le Nouvelliste. The article told how the couple fell in love with the resort and decided to build a business there.
It added that they found Le Constellation in the centre of Crans up for sale and signed an agreement to take it over in June 2015.
They worked ‘relentlessly’ to prepare the club for opening, having to effectively to completely refit the bar as it had previously been ‘left exactly as it was.’
Describing his efforts to open the club, Mr Moretti told the newspaper: ‘I did almost everything myself. Look at these walls, there are 14 tons of dry stone, it comes from Saint-Léonard!’
He told how his bar served as ‘a showcase for Corsican products’, selling cured meats, wines, beers, myrtle liqueur, and even chestnut-flavoured whisky from the island, along with more local Swiss products.
Mr Moretti admitted to ‘feeling very much at home here’ in the Swiss resort, telling his local interviewer: ‘You know, we’re the same. We’re mountain people first and foremost. Stubborn, but above all, very kind.’
Another article in French-language Altitude magazine last year described Mr and Mrs Moretti as ‘brimming with energy’ and added: ‘Their slightly sing-song accent betrays their Corsican origins.’
The success of Le Constellation under the couple’s stewardship led to them opening a gourmet burger restaurant in Crans-Montana, called Senso in 2020, and a Corsican-style inn called Vieux Chalet in the nearby village of Lens in 2023.
This led to the couple drawing up plans to set up a Corsican festival in Lens, bringing in Corsican singers to perform concerts in a church and on an outdoor stage in the evening.
While Mr Moretti does not appear to have a visible social media presence, his wife has pages on Instagram as well as Facebook and a LinkedIn account which describes her as Propriétaire, or owner of their three businesses.
Security stands in front of the sealed off Le Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year’s celebrations in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday morning, Jan. 2, 2026
A signboard of Le Constellation bar, after a fire and explosion during a New Year’s Eve party where several people died and others were injured
Parents of missing youths have issued desperate pleas for news of their children, as foreign embassies scramble to work out if their nationals were among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.
Police commander Frédéric Gisler said all bar six of the 119 injured have been formally identified, but Swiss officials are yet to share the names of any victims or injured.
The injured included 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland, according to Frédéric Gisler, police commander of the Valais region.
The nationalities of 14 people were still unclear.
Six Italians are still missing and 13 hospitalised, while eight French people are missing and another nine are among the injured.
The first deceased victim to be named was 17-year-old Emanuele Galeppini, an Italian teenage golfer.
British-educated teenager Charlotte Neddam, who previously attended Immanuel College – a private Jewish school in Hertfordshire – is also among those missing.
