Six months after the end of the Paris 2024 Olympics, a new cut in the sports budget has stirred up sports stars and sports authorities alike. Teddy Riner, Léon Marchand and the Olympic committee have strongly criticized the Bayrou government.
Legacy, what legacy? Six months after the end of the Paris Games, a new cut in the sports budget, temporarily stopped in the Senate, made the stars, from Teddy Riner to Léon Marchand, scream as much as the authorities, such as the Olympic committee.
The rest after this ad
The rest after this ad
Sport only had space for around thirty seconds on Tuesday during Prime Minister François Bayrou's general policy declaration, with in the end as many millions removed. The planer has in fact been passed on the sports budget to the tune of 34 million euros, in a last minute government amendment.
“Will we continue the post-Olympics hangover?”
This new cut in a sports budget already reduced by more than a hundred million initially has seriously raised eyebrows, with those involved in French sport fearing that the famous “Olympic heritage” will go by the wayside.
The rest after this ad
The rest after this ad
“Will we continue the post-Olympics hangover? Let's favor effective scissors over the blind chainsaw!”, the vice-president of the National Association of Sports Elected Officials (Andes), Vincent, protested Thursday evening on Saulnier. Especially since local authorities, the main funders of sport in France, are also put on a dry diet.
Former sports specialist MP, Régis Juanico (PS) has picked up his calculator again. “I redid the calculations, year by year, it’s unheard of! Sport now only represents 0.13% of the total budget,” he explained to AFP on Friday morning. “This kind of announcement discredits public discourse on sports policy,” addressed PS senator Jean-Jacques Lozach on Thursday evening, joined by LR senator Michel Savin and centrist Laurent Lafon.
The rest after this ad
The rest after this ad
-“We were told for months that France was going to become a great sporting nation and that we had to put in the resources (…), and here we see a setback and we deplore it,” said the environmentalist senator. Mathilde Ollivier, adding her voice to the outcry.
“We will not be able to maintain the momentum generated by Paris-2024”
Well aware of having to assume a declining budget, like her predecessor Gil Avérous, the new minister Marie Barsacq assured last week that “nothing was lost” in terms of legacy after the success of the Olympics. She was not very talkative Thursday evening for her first steps in the Senate.
The rest after this ad
The powerful FFF (football), like the handball federation, also protested, as did the French Olympic committee. “With such a sports budget for 2025, there will be no additional clubs, no accessible equipment, no strengthening of sports supervisors. We will not be able to maintain the momentum generated by Paris-2024”, including on parasports, said deplored the CNOSF. Several federations, such as table tennis, received an influx of members after the Olympics and were not able to accommodate them all.
Having become a national hero, the swimmer Léon Marchand, who had already criticized the reduction of the system by two hours of additional PE in college, continued to use the emoticon on X with applause full of irony.
Teddy Riner also threw his weight into the battle: “Let’s not let this flame go out, it is essential for the future!” Olympic icon, Marie-Jo Pérec also posted her Instagram post. The former Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, took to the net, still on social networks: “unacceptable”.
“The worst has been avoided”
The Senate therefore heard the call for help from the world of sport by rejecting the amendment and drawing 80 million euros from the budget of the SNU, a universal national service criticized by all sides and on the verge of burial. “The worst has been avoided,” breathes Régis Juanico, who is now banking on the deputies.
The idea is still to pass an amendment on taxes from sports betting, of a little over a hundred million euros. Voted in the Senate during the Barnier government, this measure seemed to garner the support of several political parties. “In addition, there was an explosion in stakes last year,” argued Régis Juanico.
If Marie Barsacq knows the sports ecosystem well, she does not know that of Bercy arbitrations and has no political relay. “If you don't have solid arguments, Bercy sends you back to your 22 meters. That doesn't take anything away from its goodwill,” said Mr. Juanico.
As a sports advisor from Matignon explained to AFP, we always have to fight, because “if sport is a media giant, it is a budgetary dwarf”.
