PCan we resolve, on July 26, to send to the world the image of a fractured society, of a country at the heart of a major political crisis, of a government led by the extreme right? This same extreme right which, in sport, particularly in stadiums, is only synonymous with racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism. Or do we prefer, on the occasion of the Paris Games, to welcome the world into a fraternal France, mobilized for peace and human rights, for the environment? This France that we want to build together, where sport combines with emancipation and happiness: a France of popular sport.
In 1936, while the Nazis were using the Berlin Olympics as a propaganda showcase, and the Francoist uprising was annihilating the Popular Olympics in Barcelona, the Popular Front made leisure and sports a state concern. With the creation of a specific under-secretariat of state, Léo Lagrange initiated a proactive policy of democratizing sport for all, built around the values of popular sport born in 1934 with the creation of the Fédération sportive et gymnique du travail by the Union of Socialist and Communist Workers’ Sports Organizations.
So, if in 2024 the union of the left and the environmentalists, through the New Popular Front, is the only viable response to the extreme right-wing peril that the President of the Republic and his governments have placed us in since 2017, the players and actresses of the sporting world who share the idea and ambition of a popular sport must play their full part.
Making sport a tool for popular education again
Our popular sport is educational. At school, physical and sports education (EPS) trains independent, healthy and socially educated citizens. By setting the practice of PE at four hours per week throughout schooling, we will give this too often denigrated discipline its rightful place within the education system, and the means for its teachers to achieve its purpose. In clubs, essential links in territorial cohesion, physical and sports activities are an essential lever for transmitting the values of living together. By relaunching the creation of subsidized jobs for associations, we will (re)make sport a tool for popular education.
Also read the interview with Lilian Thuram (2023): Article reserved for our subscribers Lilian Thuram: “In the face of racism, club presidents, coaches and players have a responsibility, to be neutral is to be complicit”
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Our popular sport is a vector of health and well-being. “Opening a stadium means closing a hospital”, said Léo Lagrange. If he was a precursor in many respects, the threat that physical inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle pose to our society today is further confirmation of this.
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