“Yes, I take advantage of it. But how can you resist? ” : the almost normal life of amateur athletes, tolerated despite the restrictions

And why not him, after all?

Matteo, 29, points to the quays of the Canal Saint-Martin located a few hundred meters away.

Last weekend, while playing basketball under the rails of the skytrain in Stalingrad, hundreds of onlookers were ordered to respect anti-Covid-19 measures and cut short their walk or their aperitif.

A flash evacuation supposed to mark the spirits at a time when the government tries to remobilize citizens tired of the restrictions.

"They would not be wrong to close here too", recognizes this self-employed person, fully aware that, licensed or not, it is forbidden to practice a team sport with contact indoors as in the open air.

During the first confinement, the gates of this tarred field, haunt of urban basketball in Paris nestled in the middle of traffic, were sealed.

This has not been the case since.

“I come here three times a week at the moment.

I never saw the police fining us or asking us to leave.

So yes, I take advantage of it.

But how can you resist?

», He blurted out phlegmatic, in the middle of teenagers in shootings.

A basketball court in Stalingrad, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

LP / Cyril Simon

Not proud, not ashamed either.

All of them evoke a feeling of necessity, a "vital need".

Here, they can find up to fifteen to squat this field the week or the weekend, armed with speakers from which emerge the sounds of American rap.

In the Bassin de la Villette, a little higher, they are sometimes three or four times more.

There, we play more football, but the testimonies are the same.

The context also: an all but isolated playground and all but clandestine meetings far from what may have happened during the first confinement.

When it is not the school groups who are exerting themselves, "there are plenty of games here," indicates a young woman of 25, in black tracksuit and cigarette in hand.

We are told to leave at 6 pm to respect the curfew, but nobody bothers us before ”.

“The police have been cooler for several months, analyzes another.

As if they were fed up too… ”.

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Asked twice, the Paris police headquarters did not wish to speak on the subject.

According to our information, a sports hall where boxers trained in particular has been evacuated in recent days in Bagnolet (Seine-Saint-Denis).

The keeper of a sports complex located in the inner suburbs to the east of Paris also tells us that the front door of his gymnasium has been fractured with crow's feet in recent months.

"It's a bit like the zoo here on weekends"

But he does not want to insist on "this damage" which occurred "two or three times a night".

During the day, checks and patrols are in any case less frequent on this site, according to this agent but also Matteo, present almost every day for several months.

Like many Ile-de-France residents, this business school student in Choisy-le-Roi, and resident in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne) appreciates these basketball courts overlooking the ring road.

The sensations are of course different than on the floor of their respective clubs.

But whatever, he comes with two of his friends to spend his afternoons at the option of the three against three oppositions.

“As long as it doesn't rain, and don't snow, we're here,” one of them laughs as the other pulls out his phone and shows us a video from two weeks ago.

On this same orange carpet, and under the same blue sky, there are more than fifty of them circling a basket and applauding the participants in a dunk competition.

It is difficult to see masks in these images.

“Yes, it's not easy when you play sports, he explains, sorry.

It is true that it is a bit like the zoo here on weekends.

We are no longer afraid as in spring ”.

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On the synthetic lawn opposite, Samir, 17, is not more anxious.

This afternoon, he only kicks on goal but meetings are quick to organize when the field fills up.

"We all know each other here, we risk nothing," he says.

He still says he has trouble getting used to the mask, "but otherwise other than that, my daily life doesn't change too much".