The day after the agitated wishes to the Olympic Committee (CNSOF), where around twenty people left the room when the Minister of Sports Marie Barsacq spoke, a press conference was organized this Thursday at the National Assembly. Around Belkhir Belhaddad (MP for Moselle) and Jean-Jacques Lozach (Senator for Creuse), co-presidents of the Sports Parliament, were present several bosses of Federations, representatives of the economic sector and athletes. With the aim of expressing their indignation again and again.
“We are all, players in sport, in cold anger. We were told about an inheritance, we are attending a funeral,” summarized Philippe Bana, the president of the Handball Federation. On January 16, in the middle of adjusting the 2025 budget, the government tabled an amendment introducing a new cut of 34 million euros in sports credits, reducing the total budget from 909 million in 2024 to 607 million. A few months after the great success of the Paris Olympics, we can say that it is a stain.
“Anachronistic, unfounded and unfair decisions”
“We take the French for imbeciles. This money is used to create, together with communities, public and private actors, sports facilities for children, added Bana. In handball, we refused 100,000 kids this year. There is therefore a form of relentlessness and there is no question of letting go. »
On Wednesday, 435 French athletes signed an open letter denouncing this abandonment in the open countryside. During the greetings to the CNSOF, Marie-Amélie Le Fur, president of the Paralympic committee and the National Sports Agency (ANS), for her part gave a strong speech, evoking a “context of glaring injustice for French sport” .
-“Objectively, we are walking on our heads,” said the president of the FFR Florian Grill this Thursday. Clubs play a role of social connection which is absolutely essential. Who can say that the values we learn in sport, respect, solidarity, loyalty, team spirit, are not essential? We make totally anachronistic, unfounded and unfair decisions. »
Small glimmer of hope, the parliamentarians finally rejected the government's amendment and approved that of Michel Savin (from the senator of Isère), proposing an extension of 80 million euros to the Sports envelope drawn from the credits assigned to the Universal National Service. And on Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron joined the criticism, giving “right” to the athletes who asked the State to keep the commitments made during the Olympics. The question of the sports budget is now the responsibility of the joint Senate/Assembly committee, which will meet on January 30.
