A little over a year after taking office, it’s time for the first assessments for Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. On Monday 10 July, the Minister of Sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games met around 150 French sportsmen gathered at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Entertainment (Insep), in the Vincennes forest in Paris, for an authorized seminar “For a sporting nation: a year of action in the service of French sport”.
Objective ? Present the state of play of the organization of the major international sporting events that France will host in the coming months: the Rugby World Cup (from 8 September to 28 October) then the Olympic Games (from 26 July to 11 August) and the Paralympics (from August 28 to 8 September) in Paris 2024.
But also, second objective, to define a roadmap to make sport an engine of inclusion, social integration, youth, health or well-being. In particular “in light of recent events” – the urban violence after the death of the young Nahel – reads a statement from the ministry.
A few weeks after her appointment, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had, on 18 July 2022, clarified everyone’s roles and responsibilities within the sports movement during a first seminar – already organized at Insep – seen by many as a recovery in the hands of the state on an ecosystem that until then had been divided. On Monday, it was not so much for the minister to reassert the authority of his ministry, as to sound the general mobilization.
“Within a year, France will host two of the biggest sporting events in the world”, underlined the Minister, also recalling that French sport has experienced a crisis in recent months, “sometimes serious in important federations [le football et le rugby] »which require “concrete and lasting changes to strengthen our institutions and our sporting model”.
The National Committee for Ethics and Democratic Life, chaired by former minister Marie-George Buffet and former athlete Stéphane Diagana, is to present its conclusions in November at “renew the governance of French sport”.
Fifteen steps
Before the presidents of the federations, representatives of the National Sports Agency (ANS), the organizing committees of the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Paris Games, but also local MPs and elected officials (etc.), the Minister also took the word occasion to elaborate a first evaluation of his action.
He detailed about fifteen measures implemented since he took office, such as 30 minutes of daily physical activity at school, support for women’s sport, the fight against all forms of violence, the expansion of the public entitled to the Sport Pass or the 5,000 floor plan of sports fields, etc.
It now remains to be seen whether these last two devices, with mixed successes – relative for the Pass Sport, increasing for the second – will be renewed in the ministry’s 2024 budget. The arbitrations must be done in the autumn, but a reduction in funding would seem little in line with the ambition of Emmanuel Macron who, a year ago, decreed the promotion of physical activity and sport. “great national cause 2024”.
The President of the Republic wants to take advantage of the Games to build France “a sporting nation”. To this end, the Ministry of Sport has announced the creation of a dedicated fund, managed by ANS and supplemented by state and private funds, without specifying its endowment.
Our selection of articles on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Find all our content on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games:
- Judicial investigations in progress
After the searches that targeted two senior officials in Paris 2024, the sports minister says she is “serene”
- Projects and budgets
The IOC shows “a great level of confidence” in the preparations for the Olympics
Olympic Games: the Court of Auditors believes that the Paris 2024 budget remains marked by “strong uncertainties”
- The Olympic torch relay
In a context of social tensions, the Paris route of the torch relay has been unveiled
The complexes arbitrated around the path of the torch in the Meuse
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With 6.8 million tickets sold, Tony Estanguet defends “Games open to as many as possible”
- Environmental problems
The difficult bet of the “green” Olympics.
- The question of the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes
“Our mobilization is total so that Russians and Belarusians do not fall through the cracks” anti-doping
More than three-quarters of Russian medals at the Tokyo Games do not fit the IOC’s model of neutrality
IT security: “There is a real mobilization and we are on time”
The great transport challenge
- The social issues highlighted by the Games
Accessibility for people with disabilities is slow to implement
Gender equality at the Games cannot make us forget the slow feminization of sporting practice
A parliamentary report highlights the uncertainties about the tourist benefits of the Games
- Seine-Saint-Denis and the Games
Housing in the 2024 Olympics athletes’ village offered for sale in Saint-Denis
In Bobigny, nearby construction sites, but distant jobs for young people in integration
On Airbnb, the Olympic Games make Parisian owners fantasize
The Paris 2024 Olympics accelerate the transformation of north-east Paris
- The Games are not just Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis
The 2024 Olympics in Paris, a distant horizon in popular neighborhoods
Thanks to the Paris 2024 Olympics, Grigny wants to create “a local Olympic ecosystem”
Olympic Games 2024: the Meuse wants to take advantage of the Games to develop its attractiveness through sport
