The World Cup in Qatar can continue to generate debate -between the environmental impact, the working conditions of immigrants and the place of LGBT people-, Emmanuel Macron estimated this Thursday that it is not necessary to “politicize sport”. What a surprise when the head of state has regularly shown the opposite. BFMTV.com reviewed five examples.
• Macron declares his love for OM
Between the president and the Olympique de Marseille club, it is a love story that the head of state stages regularly. We remember, for example, this exchange between him and his wife Brigitte Macron captured during the documentary Behind the scenes of a victory in his 2017 campaign.
“Oh shit, second fucking time,” the future president moans. “So what?” asks his wife in return. Answer: “Ben Monaco who beat OM in Marseille.”
The scene had its little effect when OM was one of the most popular clubs in France. Freshly elected, schoolchildren offer Emmanuel Macron an OM t-shirt during the show In the frame in C8 and then boasts of the “little star” of the Olympic club, symbol of a Champions League victory in 1993, the only one by a French team to date.
The idyll continues in the Marseillaise city since the summer following his inauguration as supreme magistrate. Head to the Commanderie, the training center for Olympic athletes, for your vacation. On this occasion, he trains with them, showing the image of a sporty and friendly president. A position that he questions.
“In the locker room he never talked about Marseille, he preferred to talk about philosophy and Paul Ricoeur,” Gaspard Gantzer, a former adviser to François Hollande who regularly played football with the future president, mockingly remarked in the columns of Release.
Throughout his tenure, the now forty-something continues to show his love for Olympic training. On the occasion of the presentation of his large-scale Marseille plan in September 2021, the Head of State, for example, takes the opportunity to have dinner with Dimitri Payet, star player of OM.
• Macron likes to be close to Mbappé
Is the president trying to benefit from the aura of the PSG player, regularly cited among the favorite personalities of the French? The question arises since he enjoys showing his closeness to the young man, sometimes even physically.
In 2018, during the World Cup in Russia, after France won the final, she hugged him for a long time on the field in front of cameras from all over the world. 2 years later, in the middle of an anecdote contest with the youtubers McFly and Carlito, in an attempt to seduce the minor, Emmanuel Macron takes out his phone to call Kylian Mbappé live. And to ask the PSG player if he plans to leave his football club to sign for OM, the president’s favorite team.
Last fall, again. The Élysée tenant does not hesitate to wet his shirt to convince the French soccer prodigy to stay at PSG by calling him several times.
“He called me to tell me: ‘I know you want to go. I want to tell you that you are also important in France. I don’t want you to go. You have the chance to make history here. Everyone loves you.'” ‘”, explained Kylian Mbappé to Sports Illustrated.
• Macron asks Olympic athletes to bring “many more medals”
In 2021, the presidency welcomes the French medalists of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. If France recovers more than thirty medals after this international competition, it is not enough, judges the Head of State.
“The results are not exactly what we expected (…) At home, we will have to do much more,” releases Emmanuel Macron, setting the goal of the country being part of the five best Olympic nations in 2024 for Paris. Olympic Games.
The method aims to put pressure on athletes while promising “a massive plan for local sports facilities.” In more general terms, the 40-year-old player is closely following the preparations for this event, which goes beyond the simple sporting framework.
• Macron opposes a reform of the Champions League
Emmanuel Macron also did not hesitate to get his hands dirty regarding the reform of the Champions League, supervised by FIFA in 2019. Believing that it served France “by sacrificing the viability” of French football for the benefit of a few at the European level, the The president received at length Gianni Infantino, the secretary general of the international organization.
What upsets the number 1 of FIFA who denounces a few days later an “inappropriate political interference in sport” in the columns of SoFoot. He was even outraged on the benches of the French Football Federation by the voice of its president Noël Le Graët who nevertheless also criticizes this reform.
“President Macron is a friend who supports our position, but when he speaks, some countries can be very upset,” judges the head of the French clubs.
• Macron plays the football card in Algiers to warm relations
In the middle of a trip to Algeria last August, questioned by journalists, the president was in favor of organizing a football match between the Fenecs and the Blues.
“I think it would be good to protect yourself from the past,” he says.
The initiative would go far beyond the round ball. “I think that sport should reconcile,” explains the head of state, statements that politically make more sense since the president’s trip comes after months of disagreements with his counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune, especially regarding French colonization.
The first match between France and Algeria since independence in 2001 remained the last. And for good reason: the event, imagined to bring the two countries closer, had resulted in a fiasco symbolized by a whistled Marseillaise and pitch invasions during the second half. A game that had not been completed.
Source: BFM TV
