JO of Paris 2024: too old or not enough, sports equipment in great need of investments

The “Macron plan” of 5,000 local equipment will not be enough to compensate for the lack of sports infrastructure. The National Sports Agency “will invest in a certain number of structuring equipment”, assures the Minister of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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necessary, but not enough. The Minister of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, has admitted it implicitly: the “Macron plan” of creation-renovation of five thousand local sports equipment (multisport trays, 3 × 3 basketball grounds, Skateparks , etc.), announced in October 2021, less than three years old from the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and whose implementation has started this year, will not lead, alone, to solve the problem of lack of sports infrastructure in France.

“We will also need to work on structuring equipment” (stadiums, gymnasiums, swimming pools, etc.), said M me oudéa-Castera by presenting his 2023 budget project National Assembly, October 25. “This is the meaning of the work today of the National Sports Agency [years] to properly analyze the places and sports that will have to be the subject of these priority investments,” she said. p>

Created in 2019 to coordinate public sports policies on the territory, in particular the mission is to correct social and territorial inequalities in terms of access to sports practices and equipment.

If the Minister of Sports welcomes “that the investments carried out in recent years allow you to organize games with 95 % of existing or temporary infrastructure”, the reality, with regard to the daily reception of the daily practitioners, is less flattering. The equipment is lacking, or, when it exists, is aging.

A parliamentary mission led by deputy Belkhir Belhaddad (Renaissance, Moselle) noted, in March, that 40 % of 272,000 infrastructures whose communities are owners date from before 1985, 61 % are over 25 and 70 % have never benefited from major work. And this is without talking about access inequalities: a third of rural municipalities have no equipment and the priority districts of cities are under-equipped.

“It would be necessary to secure 500 million per year “

“You need a large Marshall construction and renovation plan for sports equipment, for which it would be necessary to secure 500 million euros per year”, launched the deputy Claudia Rouaux (socialists and related, Ille-et-Vilaine) , Rapporteur for opinion on the project of sports budget, to M me oréaa-Castera. She took over the proposal of Mr. Belhaddad, who demanded a programming law for the period 2025-2030, taking over the “Macron plan” on local equipment. in its report , the deputy estimated that this program – 200 million euros in investments over three years in its initial version (100 million from 2022) – can only be “the first step before the presentation of a proactive and massive plan of ‘Investment “.

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/Media reports.