Include sport in the Constitution, make it compulsory in higher education... The "Sport 2027" collective wants to place sport at the heart of the presidential election

The day after the candidacy of judoka Teddy Riner for the presidential election, sport was opportunely at the heart of the first round table of the 5th edition of “Demain le sport”, Tuesday November 10. On the theme "What place for sport in the presidential election", the newly formed collective "Sport 2027", made up of eight sporting bodies and coordinated by the French Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), presented its first five measures for the attention of future candidates.

The first of these proposals was formulated by the president of the CNOSF, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who asks for no less than the inclusion of sport in the Constitution in order to “guarantee equal access to sporting practice”. This registration exists for example in Spain or Portugal, specified the former Minister of Sports who notably pointed out the twice as low presence of children from modest families in clubs. “We are asking for a programming law because sport needs a multi-annual framework” to produce “practical and tangible effects”.

The second measure, presented by Marie-Amélie Le Fur, president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee, focuses on young people, based on the worrying observation that almost “one in two young people are at health risk” due to significant screen time (more than 4.5 hours per day) and too low a level of physical activity (less than twenty minutes).

“We are asking for students to go out at 3:30 p.m., and at 4:30 p.m. for high schools to allow time for sports practice in an extracurricular and extracurricular dynamic.”

Conditions for success in this second proposal, the collective highlighted the importance of expanding the sports offering, investing in the creation of new sports equipment and their sharing, and working towards a better transport offering. Still on youth, "Sport 2027" also asks candidates to take up their proposal to make sport compulsory in higher education courses - today 40% of students do not practice regular sporting activity.

Based on the OpinionWay study for Intersport, dated last October, the collective also took into consideration the fact that, for 46% of French people, the first obstacle to practicing sport is economic. “Sport 2027” thus calls for the creation of “a personal sports account for each French person”, which would be financially supplemented, among others, by public authorities for the most deprived people and precarious populations far from sport. One way to compensate in particular for the “disappearance of Sports Pass credits”, regretted by Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.

In a sector which has 33% women among managers, 35% among employees in the sports branch and 17% among sports journalists, "Sport 2027" also proposes to create a "Sport for all" program to help the feminization of the sector, but also a greater diversity of profiles, with mentoring and leadership workshops.

As a final measure, the collective wants to see the candidates use the 2030 Olympics as an opportunity to sign “an international agreement to accelerate the adaptation of sport to climate change”. They have already contacted the International Olympic Committee and suggest working with athletes, national Olympic and Paralympic committees on Olympic and non-Olympic disciplines of winter and ice sports.

“Sport 2027” also intends to roll out other proposals in January, during the wishes to sport, around the themes of disability, health, high performance, volunteering, and taxation and economics. Next will come on February 1, on BFM-TV, an unprecedented debate between the candidates for the presidential election on the issue of sport. “We need the candidates to listen to us to make sport weigh in the presidential debate. We want to propose, we want to convince and mobilize, well beyond Teddy Riner,” called Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who welcomed the judoka’s candidacy.

“If Teddy Riner can help to further convey this message of the importance of sport, that’s a plus. But, for us, the approach is across the entire political spectrum because precisely, sport is also there to overcome divisions,” insisted the president of the CNSOF, underlining the “apolitical” strategy of the collective. It is now up to the candidates to take up these first proposals.