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. 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 represents only 0.13% of the total budget,” he explained on Friday morning.
Riner and Marchand react
“We were told for months that France was going to become a great sporting nation and that we had to put in place the means […]and there we see a blow and we deplore it,” launched environmentalist senator Mathilde Ollivier, adding her voice to the outcry. 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 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 reinforcement of sports supervisors. We will not be able to maintain the momentum generated by Paris-2024,” including in parasports, lamented the CNOSF.
-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 worst has been avoided”
The former Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, took to the net, still on social networks: “unacceptable”. 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.
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