INSIDE THE RENOVATION: New images reveal how Swiss ski bar owners personally renovated the club themselves — as they now face manslaughter charges following the deadly blaze
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.
Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica, 40, who opened Le Constellation bar in 2015, could face manslaughter charges over the tragedy if their safety standards or fire precautions were found to be lacking, Swiss authorities have said.
The inferno, which broke out at around 1.30am local time (12.30am GMT) on Thursday morning, 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.
Much suspicion has already focussed on the dimpled foam acoustic insulation which covered the ceiling of the basement bar and appeared to ignite from a sparkler held aloft on a Champagne bottle, then spread with terrifying ferocity.
And these photos, discovered on a Facebook account set up by the French couple in 2015, chronicling their DIY renovation of the bar, show the ceiling was completely stripped back at the time, with the foam then applied as the final layer.
In one image Mr Moretti 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 in the downstairs area of the club which caught fire.
The Morettis, speaking publicly for the first time, insisted that all laws and regulations had been followed and claimed that the bar had been checked by safety inspectors three times in the last 10 years.
‘Everything was done according to the regulations,’ Jacques Moretti, 49, told the La Tribune de Genève newspaper. ‘We can neither sleep nor eat. We are not well.’
He denied reports that the stairs leading from the basement where the fire started to the main exit were too narrow or that non fire-retardant materials were used in furnishings or soundproofing foam on the ceiling.
‘We will do everything in our power to help clarify the causes. We are doing everything in our power. Our lawyers are also involved.’
Jacques Moretti, 49, who is one of the owners 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 he 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 in 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
Mrs Moretti was in the bar when the blaze began and was burnt on the arm. Her husband was in one of the two other restaurants that they own in the area.
In a property feature, the couple stressed the hard work they had put into the refit of the tired Café Des Amis, which they turned into a lively nightspot.
In 2015, they acquired the Constellation, which was then abandoned. ‘The place had been left exactly as it was,’ the French-Coriscan couple said.
One hundred days of relentless work later, the venue reopened, completely transformed and displaying strong, clear choices. ‘We were already offering Corsican cured meats, myrtle liqueur, and island whisky,’ they said.
On the Facebook photos the couple can be seen taking an active part in the refurbishment with Jacques alongside workmen and Jessica even stopping the traffic in the narrow streets of Crans as deliveries of furniture and other materials are made from huge lorries.
Jacques Moretti told Le Nouvelliste, a local newspaper, that he spent six months transforming Le Constellation into a buzzy night spot for the après-ski crowd of the upmarket resort’s winter season.
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.
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.
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 Niddam, who previously attended Immanuel College – a private Jewish school in Hertfordshire – is also among those missing.
