Written by Louise Beliaeff
Ambinintsoa Andriankajarivelo, a referee at the World Pétanque Championship for eighteen years, was violently attacked by a team on the first day of the competition. She looks back on this incident to try to change mentalities.
A somewhat spoiled party. On Sunday, June 30, at the opening of the 63rd edition of La Marseillaise à pétanque, a referee was the victim of a violent attack on one of the courts. In shock, Ambinintsoa Andriankajarivelo, “Ambi”, received the support of all her fellow referees who symbolically stepped back on Monday morning. The day after the incident, she agreed to give her testimony to France 3 Provence-Alpes, for “don’t let this happen again”.
“I’m not used to talking, but this time it’s important”. We meet Ambi in the shade of the plane trees in Borély Park, on this second day of La Marseillaise à pétanque. She agrees without reservation to speak to us, and takes the time to return to the assault. “I am Ambi, I am of Malagasy origin and I live here in the South. I have been a referee for eighteen years and this is my 20th Marseillaiseshe introduces herself, calmly. This is the third time I have been attacked since I started wearing the black and white jersey..
“This happened yesterday (Sunday, June 30), during the third part of the competition, around 6:20 p.m., she begins to tell. There were two female referees at the Henri-Fabre park site., Around 6pm, my colleague had to go and vote. There were three games left, she asked me to do them. I said yes, of course, and I went.”
It was at this point that Ambi was called by a team for a 13th point, the winning point in pétanque. “It’s important for players to measure this point, to see who wins. So I went there, I applied myself, I measured several times with the pull tab and I found a difference. So I designated the point”. Which did not suit the losing team.
They didn’t accept because they had lost, so they were a little… how to say… violent, threatening towards me.
Ambinintsoa Andriankajariveloto France 3 Provence-Alpes
“They were making gestures… A woman, maybe the wife of one of the players, put the phone in my face, she was making a video. She said: “There, look! There! It’s her! There’s her head! It’s her!”“the referee says, miming the gesture.
“I took it upon myself, I said to myself: ‘You’re not like her, you stay calm’. I kept repeating that to myself. And at the same time, on the phone, I had another boss, Patrick Grignon, who wouldn’t let me go. I think he heard almost everything.”
Ambi also receives death threats. “We’re going to kill you… that’s it.” For the referee, being a woman and, what is more, “colorful”, in his words, played. “I heard: ‘The Chinese woman, the Chinese woman, the Chinese woman!’. Racist and sexist reactions for which she has already suffered.
“All that for this point, for a pétanque competition which was supposed to be friendly…she breathes. To get to this point, I really don’t understand.
“They wanted another referee to measure at all costs. They took the zipper from my hands, they wanted to measure. No formal address, no respect at all towards the refereeing body. I said no, my decision is final and that’s how it is, we couldn’t do otherwise.”
The incident doesn’t end there. The team calls for reinforcements, the tension rises. The head of referees, Patrick Grignon, sends security on his side.
Other referees also came to protect me, we didn’t know how it would end… It could have been more serious.
Ambinintsoa Andriankajariveloto France 3 Provence-Alpes
She leaves a time. “I was scared, yes.”.
Luck was on the referee’s side this Sunday, June 30. Right at the start of the altercation, a player from the opposing team told him that apart from the balls… he was a police officer. The latter filmed the scene and intervened to defend Ambi. “It’s incredible”she says, her eyes moist. The intervention of the police officer, the referees and the security prevent the worst. But something has broken for the passionate woman.
“It’s a competition that’s close to my heart, La Marseillaise. It was my twentieth year. Twenty years ago, I won a prize and so I was really happy to be there this year… I thought it was going to go well and in the end it didn’t… but maybe that’s what’s going to make things happen.” Throughout the interview, Ambi keeps her smile, and leaves a few silences, charged with emotion.
“As I have a lot of support from the Federation, the refereeing body and the president of La Marseillaise, I have hope and I hope that it will make things move. It’s a blessing in disguise.“Ambi raises the problem of non-licensees in competitions, as was the case with his attackers. “Perhaps, in the future, make it mandatory for players to be licensed from the first day of the World Cup?”
The day after the attack, Ambi said to himself “a little calmed down.” The referee filed a complaint, the Mondial La Marseillaise joined in. She chose to return to do her job on the grounds of the Parc Borély. And from the start of the day, Ambi saw her attackers, banned for life from La Marseillaise, but back as spectators in the alleys of the Marseille park. Not far from the grounds where she officiates.
And with disconcerting serenity, as throughout the interview, the referee asserted: “I think we have to show ourselves. We have to show that they are not the ones who make the law. There is a rule, there is a discipline to follow and everyone has to stick to it.”
