CP students from a school in Nogent-sur-Marne run on the Insep track, while young girls from the Meaux gymnastics club take a break with the President of the Republic.
6 months before the opening of the Paris Olympic Games on the Seine, Emmanuel Macron came to Insep on Tuesday - "the land of champions" to present his wishes to the sporting world.
A visit started with a visit to the Dojo, with Clarisse Agbégnénou, the double gold medalist from the Tokyo Games, as guide.
Among the thousand guests gathered under the vault of the Halle Maigrot, high-level athletes - current and former -, federal leaders and directors of the organizing committee of the Olympic Games, but also witnesses of the public policies implemented since 2017 to “make France a sporting nation”.
There are still beneficiaries of the pass port - a system allowing a reduction of 50 euros on a license and which will be renewed at the next school year - and students practicing 30 minutes of daily physical activity at school.
“The legacy of the Games” was placed at the heart of the President's speech: more activity at school, in particular to fight against a sedentary lifestyle, but also in businesses, and close to home, via the 5,000 plan local facilities, renewed in 2023 and now more focused on the “2024 generation”, via new or renovated sports facilities, which are used both during and outside school hours.
As announced by Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Minister of Education, Sports and the Olympic Games in "Le Parisien" on January 2, the President recalled his desire to find 3 million additional practitioners between "the year of the Olympics and 2027”, the end of his second five-year term.
“The year 2024 will be a vintage, sporting, organizational one,” insists Emmanuel Macron, insisting on “an impeccable organization” and pointing out the major challenges of the Olympics: in particular the delivery of projects “on time”, security, the most sustainable transport and Games in history.
“A year of celebration, sporting and cultural”, with Olympics organized throughout France, from May 8, the date of the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseille.
“We will continue to prepare for the future thanks to these Games”, insists the President, associating, on several occasions, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games since June 2022, and who since the expansion of her portfolio during the reshuffle, faced controversy.
“Sport will help transform our lives, it will make us proud, it will bring us medals,” insists Macron.
It will allow us to have very great Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond that, to have a long-lasting legacy and a change in the place of sport in our Nation.
» The results of the 800 French athletes entered next summer were also discussed.
The President recalled the means deployed to enable them to prepare, with the ambition that none of them now live below the poverty line (there was 40% in 2016).
“We still have things to perfect so that 2024 will be unforgettable, but we are there,” said the President.