The Institute of Youth and Popular Education on Thursday, March 2, released a national survey of sporting activity for the year 2022, which showed encouraging results.
While the French, especially young people, are seeing their health and well-being threatened by a sedentary lifestyle and the omnipresence of screens, participation in sports is clearly increasing. Between 2018 and 2022 it grew by 6 points among people over 15 years old, bringing the proportion of French people claiming they regularly play a sport up to 60%. Considering what is to come in 2024, when physical activity and sports will become the great national cause, this is a very encouraging step.
This great momentum is fueled by the brilliant results of our French teams and athletes, by major recent and upcoming sporting events in France (including the Rugby World Cup this fall and the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games), as well as by a renewed enthusiasm for many sports after two years of pandemic.
Progress of sports democracy
These positive elements have unfortunately been partly overshadowed in recent months by a succession of crises in the governance of French athletics, of varying nature and intensity. Whether they are the result of anachronistic managerial practices, breaches of ethics, inadequacies in the fight against all forms of violence or a lack of democratic accountability mechanisms, they all point to the need for concrete and definitive changes to strengthen the institutions of French sport.
These crises should not make us forget that many federations are doing well – every day millions of volunteers, leaders and field staff ensure the richness and vitality of our sporting movement. Sport is also the leading sector in terms of engagement in our country, which benefits participants through every region of the country. These crises should not mask the undeniable progress of sports democracy, underpinned by the law of March 2, 2022, of which we are celebrating the first anniversary today.
This law allows for important advances, in particular by introducing club voting for the appointment of federal bodies and parity in national and regional governing bodies, by promoting openness and democratic renewal and by strengthening obligations in terms of preventing violence in sport. In this respect, I salute the in-depth work undertaken by the sports federations, with the support of the state, to put in place this revamped framework.
We are interested in your experience using the site.
Ambition for reform
This movement to modernize the governance of sports must learn from recent mistakes, which can no longer occur within organizations that provide a public service and are responsible for part of the future and well-being of our youth.
You have 43.63% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.