Le Figaro Nantes
The day after Women's Rights Day, the mayor of Nantes Johanna Rolland boasted of inaugurating
"the first Nantes football field 100% dedicated to women's football"
.
Enough to make some Internet users react and trigger a new skirmish with his self-declared future opponent in the next municipal elections, Foulques Chombart de Lauwe.
“The identity left in all its splendor: a football field reserved for women.
Specific times, why not, but the terrain???
Tomorrow, swimming pools?
, reacted the latter on the X network (formerly Twitter).
For her part, the mayor of Nantes described an
“emblematic equipment of our project which aims both to make Nantes the
first non-sexist city
and to develop sport for all”
.
The Groupement Féminin Nantes Est, which brings together four football clubs and 150 licensees, has benefited since November from 80% of the slots on the Marrière field, located in Doulon-Bottière, to the east of the city.
The remaining 20% is dedicated to free practice, to schoolchildren, but especially to boys.
Asked by
Le Figaro
to shed light on this new sporting heritage, the elected official in charge of equality Mahaut Bertu returned to the reasons for this establishment, brushing aside any controversy.
It first invokes a response to a logistical problem.
“The way sports associations work is to have a site where they are installed and to have their own club dynamic
. ”
However, for several years, licensees have benefited from slots scattered across various sites.
Their managers therefore requested a location to be able to refocus their training.
“The only reason to open this land is to respond to a deficiency”
, insists the municipal councilor of the majority, who speaks
of “extrapolation”
, putting an end to any desire to one day develop swimming pools for women.
“We are being given intentions that have never been considered and will never be considered.
It’s quite a caricature .
”
Read alsoFootball: the FFF reveals the impressive figures for women's football on the number of licensees
More female footballers
“We warned the town hall in 2017 to say that it was increasingly complicated
,” confirms Stéphane Desport, president of the RACC, one of the structuring clubs of the Groupement Féminin Nantes Est.
“There was a need
,” he states simply.
“We have 35% more girls.
It has become democratized.
There are more demands
,” he notes.
A
“City Foot Plan”
from 2018 to 2022 has enabled the growth of the practice: now, one in ten licensees is female.
Stéphane Desport observes that the latter often find space more easily.
“Effectively, for men's football, young boys who want to register find themselves facing complete clubs in terms of reception capacities.
It’s a reality
,” he observes, without judgment.
Beyond a logistical need, the town hall did not skimp on the underlying egalitarian dimension.
“It turns out that we have a subject of equality here.
Clubs that have good practice conditions are men's clubs.
We're reversing this, women's clubs now have their own dedicated grounds and are taking over public space
,” says Mahaut Bertu, the 6th socialist deputy to the mayor of Nantes, delegate to the non-sexist city.
With this in mind, the objective is to
“ensure that we are vigilant in supporting the practice of girls and women.
When they want to open clubs, they have access to changing rooms, equipment…”
The municipality does not have a quantified objective on the number of registered but wishes to support all female profiles who
“have the 'want to set up a section or get involved'
.
In addition to the “non-sexism” aspect, the town hall announces that this new pitch, equipped with less energy-consuming LED lighting, was designed using a
“natural material”
: the synthetic lawn rests on corncobs, a first compared to the others which are filled with cork and olive stones.