“Mr. Galtier, you have accustomed us to more relevant and responsible answers – are we talking about it?
Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, tweeted this message at 8 p.m. to Christophe Galtier, the Parisian coach, whose release a little earlier, at a press conference, on the eve of the Champions League match against Juventus Turin, this Tuesday September 6 at 9 p.m. at the Parc des Princes, had already ignited the web.
A brief reminder of the facts.
Sunday, Alain Krakovitch, the boss of the TGV within the SNCF, had challenged the PSG following a tweet showing the Parisians in a plane to join Nantes: “Paris-Nantes is in less than two hours by TGV, I re-re-renew our proposed TGV offer adapted to your specific needs, for our common interests: safety, speed, services and eco-mobility”.
This Monday, a journalist from LCI therefore asked Galtier: “Is this a question that you are asking yourself and have you spoken to your players about it?
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Paris-Nantes is in less than 2 hours by @TGVINOUI.
@PSG_inside, I re-re-renew our #TGV offer proposal adapted to your specific needs, for our common interests: safety, speed, services and eco mobility 🌎 🙂 https://t.co/FJCW6M7Mwe
— Alain Krakovitch (@alainkrakovitch) September 4, 2022
The coach looked at Mbappé, seated to his right, before bursting into laughter with the Paris striker.
“Excuse me, he first reacted.
I suspected that we were going to have this question…” Having become serious again, he then launched: “To be very honest with you this morning we spoke with the company which organizes our trips.
We're trying to see if we can't get around in a sand yacht.
So.
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VIDEO.
Travel by PSG by plane: "We are seeing if we cannot travel by sand yacht", quips Galtier
It is an understatement to say that the joke did not pass, while the French are called to energy sobriety.
Several elected officials and environmental activists were outraged by the disconnection displayed by the coach.
“I do not mind that there is selfishness in football, but there could also be a little decency, entrusted to us Benjamin Lucas, deputy ecologist / Nupes.
We're not going to make it a state scandal, but when you're admired by millions of people, you try to rise to the occasion.
There, I see a form of indecency.
This gives the image of a privileged few who profit.
We must not dramatize the sequence, nor politicize it, but it is unhealthy clumsiness.
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Mr. Galtier, you have accustomed us to more relevant and more responsible answers – are we talking about it?
@PSG_inside @CBaune #Sobriety #Mbappe #Galtier #psg #TGV https://t.co/gzmcjI4N8J
– Amélie Oudéa-Castéra (@AOC1978) September 5, 2022
Even if the SNCF does not hide the fact that it offers solutions to adapt, the fact remains that traveling by train is not necessarily easy for a professional football team like PSG, which must in particular deal with security constraints and time requirements.
But the laughter of the interested parties, this Monday, goes badly.
“I am not going to overwhelm Kylian Mbappé and give this fault a dimension that it does not have, but that is not good, continues Benjamin Lucas.
It doesn't help and I know he's a committed person who got us used to it better.
“On social networks, the reactions have therefore also fused:” When the money disconnects from all reality “, says Fred Badina Serpette, councilor of Paris.
“Heartbreaking and small.
Just irresponsible and full of sufficiency” for Jean Rottner, President of the Grand-Est region.
Heartbreaking and small.
Just irresponsible and full of smugness.
https://t.co/65oiumY20O
— Jean ROTTNER (@JeanROTTNER) September 5, 2022
If nothing says that Christophe Galtier is not sensitive to the ecological question, it seems that he missed an opportunity to underline it by being content to be ironic on such a serious question.
Aurore Lalucq, economist and MEP Public Square, finds these reactions "completely above ground, whether from an ecological or social point of view".
“They give the impression of not understanding climate issues, of being off the mark,” she adds.
Frankly, talking about sand yachting is from another age.
I found Mr. Galtier's remarks totally contemptuous and despicable.
The TGV, for millions of French people, is expensive.
Some bleed themselves to be able to take the TGV.
This story reminds me of Arsène Wenger in 2015, when a controversy arose from a 14-minute plane ride.
He had faced the controversy and responded with the class that we know him.
I hope they will try to catch up, that the club will end up traveling by TGV for such short journeys.
At the very least, they could start by apologizing.
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“In times of crisis, such a joke, we cannot hear it”
Anne-Laurence Pétel, Renaissance MP for the 14th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône, after having tweeted about "a rather surreal sequence, devastating for the football community", tells us that Galtier and Mbappé "must understand that they are influencers, that their words influence the youth".
She remarks: "Kylian Mbappé and Christophe Galtier have just demonstrated that we cannot count on goodwill and that, if we do not do punitive things, we will not succeed, that with the money, we can fuck ecology.
It is symbolic, but politics is made up of symbols”.
Read alsoJet travel, luxury cars... Do football and ecology go hand in hand?
For his part, Jean-François Julliard, director general of Greenpeace France, judges this episode “distressing”.
"I'm a football fan and I thought that some coaches, like Christophe Galtier, were above.
Let him say he's thinking about it, not making a big joke about it.
In times of crisis, such a joke cannot be heard.
We had already questioned clubs on the issue, who told us that it was complicated for security reasons.
We hear this argument, but we are convinced that we can find a solution.
There, the solution was proposed by a boss of the SNCF.
Galtier's answer therefore looks even more off the mark.
I would like him to reconsider his remarks and suggest that his club also contribute to the collective effort in terms of ecology,
whether it's with different modes of travel, or whether players are raising awareness... There can be plenty of means.
Why would PSG players make less effort than others?
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