No fan zones or giant screens : after Strasbourg, Lille, Rodez, Bourg-lès-Valence or Chomérac, it is the turn of Marseille, Bordeaux, Nancy, Rennes, Reims and now Paris to join this Monday the list of French cities refusing to promote World Cup matches football in Qatar for humanitarian and environmental reasons.
“This event goes a little against what we want to do in Paris in the organization of major events like Paris 2024“said Pierre Rabadan, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of sport, the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Seine, to France Bleu Paris. “The environmental impact is questioned” he justified in particular.
“This competition has gradually turned into human and environmental disasterincompatible with the values that we want to see carried through sport and in particular football”, explained the Marseille municipality, led by the socialist Benoît Payan at the head of a broad left-wing and environmentalist coalition. “Marseille, strongly attached to the values of sharing and solidarity in sport and committed to building a greener city, cannot contribute to the promotion of this 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar”the city insisted in a press release.
“I would really have the impression, if Bordeaux hosted these fan zones, of being an accomplice” of “this sporting event which represents all humanitarian, ecological and sporting aberrations”, declared for his part Monday morning the environmentalist mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic.
The city of Nancy pointed out in a press release the “gap” of “the use of air-conditioned stadiums during this World Cup (…) with the challenges of ecological transition” and called on the organizers to “seriously review the rules for awarding the next World Cups” in order to “to integrate these issues” of “sobriety” and of “respect for human rights”.
Finally, for the mayor of Reims Arnaud Robinet (Horizons), “at a time when the public authorities are asking (…) to reduce (the) energy consumption, such installations would arouse legitimate misunderstanding (…) for one of the most controversial events in history Sport”.
Humanitarian and ecological reasons
Among the reasons for this boycott are the treatment of immigrant workers and the number of deaths as part of the construction of the eight World Cup stadiums. While the official toll is only three dead, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported in a report that 50 workers died in workplace accidents in Qatar in 2020 alone, and 500 injured. serious. A figure that could be higher according to her due to shortcomings in the accident registration system. In a survey published last February, the Guardian assured that at least 6,500 immigrant workers had died in the emirate since the awarding of the World Cup in 2010.
Apart from the question of human rights, Pierre Hurmic also refused to be “incoherent” in relation to the efforts requested of the population in terms of “energy sobriety”: “You cannot call your fellow citizens to sobriety and yourself be complicit in energy aberration of this nature” he said, adding that “those who awarded the World Cup to Qatar in 2010 were light years away from energy sobriety”.
Will other cities follow?
A month and a half before the start of the competition, Mr. Hurmic is convinced “that other mayors will make identical decisions in the days to come”. On Saturday, the socialist mayor of Lille Martine Aubry also announced that no giant screen would be installed, denouncing a “nonsense with regard to human rights, the environment and sport”. A decision also taken in Rodez and Strasbourg, in particular.