“Chronicle of ordinary racism on the edge of the field.” This is the title of the press release published Tuesday March 26 by the Olympic Rugby of Pantin, in which the club recounts racist remarks addressed to its mixed junior team (girls under 15 and boys under 14). ), during a tournament “60 kilometers from Paris”. “Our players saw themselves given little nicknames or first names by spectators in the stand that were not theirs: ‘Kirikou’, ‘Fatoumata’, ‘Pogba’… Curiously, these ‘encouragements’ n ‘were only addressed to our players with ‘black’ skin”specifies the press release.
The events took place on Saturday March 9, in Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne), during a junior tournament organized by the Olympique Columérien Pays Fertois Rugby, where the clubs of RO de Pantin and Rugby Sud were invited. 77 from Fontainebleau. “Later, [une fois les matchs terminés]while they were waiting in front of the clubhouse to have a snack, they were invited in in a rather curious manner: ‘Well, you can come in, we’re not at the mosque’ (…) Finally, during the snack, our coaches were approached with compliments for some of our players, but with systematic reference to their supposed origins: ‘the big Malian’, ‘the little Ivorian’… Our coach made the reflection to our hosts, who assure us that they do not condone this”, specifies the press release. The people behind these comments could not be identified.
Spectators “agitated” and under the influence of “alcohol”
Bruno Carrère, president of the Pantin club, contacted by franceinfo: sport, describes a “growing unease” throughout the day, reported by the educator who accompanied the team. So much so that the latter made the decision “to leave more quickly, telling yourself that it might not end there”, explains the man who is also deputy mayor, in charge of social and solidarity actions in the city of Pantin. “She said to herself that we couldn’t expose children to that.”
Present at this tournament with his Rugby Sud 77 mini team from Fontainebleau, Sylvain Pommier talks about “very agitated people on the side of the field, who harangued the players a little. I think there was a little alcohol too. (…) It wasn’t like a normal atmosphere.” If he didn’t hear the “message content”, the coach “can’t say nothing was said”.
Among the members of the host club (Olympique Columérien and Pays Fertois Rugby), no one says they have personally noticed inappropriate behavior. Co-president Mehdi Meziani, present during the matches but left shortly before the snack, told franceinfo: sport: “At the time I was at the event, there was nothing wrong with it, otherwise I would have intervened. (…) We’re not sure if they’re parents from our club.”
“The sports club (club house), where there is the refreshment bar, was open for children and parents,” specifies Wilfrid Bourdier, coach of the Columérien club’s juniors. “The sidelines are opposite the house, on the other side of the field. The coaches aren’t aware of what’s going on.” “At the end of the match, I heard one of the girls from Pantin complaining to her coach that we had to stop the racist insults, adds Stéphane Vert, also an educator at the Coulommiers club. The coach came to see me, talked to me about it. I understood very well and I then reported it to management. But I didn’t witness anything personally, and we couldn’t figure out where it came from.”
All the officials of the Coulommiers club contacted by franceinfo: sport condemn these actions, like the other clubs.
“Intolerable” acts for the Coulommiers club
Following this day, a message and an email were sent by Olympique Columérien to the parents of the players, and a meeting was organized “to explain what happened and to say that it is intolerable in our sport and in our club”, asserts the co-president. The Seine-et-Marne Departmental Rugby Committee was notified of the incident. “We are going to send a letter to all the clubs, which will be redistributed to rugby schools, to raise awareness of these excesses”explains its president, Christian Moreno, also at the head of the RC Champs Val Maubuée club, who assures that he has never known or heard of racist actions before.
“We want the children who come to play rugby to be protected from the prejudices to which they are exposed in the rest of society, to feel in their place. All the work of educators, to give children confidence and allow them to asserting oneself, is sometimes knocked to the ground by these behaviors.”
Bruno Carrère, president of Pantin Olympic Rugby,at franceinfo: sport
In the press release from the Pantin club, it is specified that “unlike other times, we did not experience insults, monkey cries, bananas being thrown (yes, yes, we have already experienced that…)”. The problem of racist discrimination in rugby is more structural than it seems for Bruno Carrère, the president of the Pantin club, who explains that he wanted “to mark the hit” without pointing the finger at the Coulommiers club, whose reception was “quality and warm”. “Our approach is to raise awareness, he elaborates. I am not teaching other clubs a lesson. We want to strive for collective awareness. We are perhaps insufficiently vigilant about the little things of everyday life.”
An opinion shared by Wilfrid Bourdier, from Coulommiers: “Now, we are going to be very careful. It’s true that in terms of vigilance, we weren’t there, because it’s a problem that we’ve never had.”
A testimony that “echoes” other incidents
Many rugby clubs have given their support to the Pantin club and the players targeted, in the comments that can be found under the publication of the press release on the various social networks. “What touches me is the support of clubs like RC Chevreuse or RCS Brétigny, which do not necessarily have the same audience as usconfides Bruno Carrère. Everyone reacts, probably because this testimony echoes things they heard on the sidelines, which seem harmless but which are in reality much more problematic than we think.
Among this support, that of the Foyer Laïque Haut Vernet (Pyrénées-Orientales) which provides “his unwavering support in the face of such increasingly frequent behavior on our rugby fields. You are not alone.” Several players from the Pyrenees club were victims of racist insults, before a brawl broke out on October 1 during a match against Entente Fleury-Salles-Coursan (Aude). According to The Teamthe Foyer Laïque Haut Vernet club and the SOS Racisme association had filed a complaint.