Paris 2024 Olympics: And suddenly, sports became a priority

VSThis is undoubtedly “Olympic magic”. With the prospect of France hosting the Games in the summer of 2024, a sport that has been neglected by public policy for years is suddenly emerging as a priority.

The “Olympic effect” was certainly not immediate. The noise was only heard from May 2021, when Emmanuel Macron called on France “Sports Nation”. Three years before the opening of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP). But four years after this extraction.

Prior to that, his first five-year term was primarily marked by the cutting of state allocations for sports. So much so that back in October 2018, in an open letter, 380 sportsmen and women warned that “The French sports family is in danger”.

Physical training and sports “A great national cause for 2024” It was only announced in July 2022, at the start of a second five-year term, with one aim: for the JOP to leave “heritage”.

This primarily concerns the practice of youth: its (re)energization is represented as “Mother of Battles” By the Minister of Sports and JOP Amelie Oudéa-Castéra, who regularly highlights the risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle and also makes health sports a main axis.

At school, the government is trying to generalize thirty minutes of daily physical activity in primary school and is experimenting with two extra hours of sport a week in college. Measures that are not so easy to implement.

Risk of “pan explosion”.

beyond “The big challenge is to succeed in strengthening our sports model”, M. often repeated^I Oudéa-Castéra until his appointment in May 2022. It’s a way of saying that if we want to develop the practice of sport, we need to make it easier to access it at the same time – but Sport Pass, for example, struggles to achieve this. 5.6 million youth target – Consolidation of service offering and availability of sufficient and appropriate equipment.

The traditional “vehicle” of this practice, association sports, is weakened and must be accompanied by the evolution of its organization (renewal of volunteers, professionalization, financing) and its offer, the latter no longer meeting expectations, especially for women.

As for sports infrastructures, they are not numerous enough, and those that exist are often old. This is confirmed by the government “landscape” of this equipment “Change through games”. At the end of 2021, he immediately launched a plan to create 5,000 local facilities, allocating 200 million euros to it over two years.

Not enough, according to a number of elected officials – namely local elected officials, sports’ first financiers – who are asking. The Grand Marshall Plan » For structuring equipment (stadiums, gymnasiums, swimming pools, etc.). Especially since the energy crisis strengthened the need to renew a large part of the park.

“This is a lasting legacy that we will leave behind that will allow us, over time, with practice and infrastructure, to truly make our nation a sporting nation.”assured Mr.
Macron, March 14, 500 days since the opening of the Games.

“It’s not just words”“, the government says. Chick! will respond to elected officials who hope that it will be fiscally tangible after the JOP. Otherwise, according to them, the Olympic effect, which ended before the increase in state credits for sports (even if they still weigh only 0.2% of the budget), will remain. “fire in the pan”.