The context of the presidential election of the Republic presents a prime opportunity for all sectors of activity to engage with the various candidates in order to seek answers to their concerns.
In this framework, the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) naturally wished for sports to be an integral part of the political debate. To this end, it drafted a platform with twelve proposals, which it sent to all the individuals whose candidacy has been validated by the Constitutional Council.
Ms. Eva Joly, and Messrs. François Bayrou, François Hollande, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Nicolas Sarkozy responded to all twelve points in a detailed and specific manner. Their written contributions will serve as the basis for discussions the CNOSF will have with the future Minister of Sports.
However, the CNOSF is very committed to ensuring that the reflection on the societal importance of sport goes beyond this platform and the formulated responses. Imagine if sport were at the heart of a governmental project!
It is recognized that regular and appropriate physical activity maintains and strengthens an individual’s health capital and can even act as a healing factor for certain diseases. These are significant benefits in terms of public health and promise future savings for social security. Moreover, sport can provide individuals with a balance that will enable them to better overcome life’s difficulties. It is an additional asset for combating stress-related or wellness-related issues.
By making respect for oneself, others, and the rules one of its cardinal values, sport also contributes to the education of those who practice it. Allowing young people to become men and citizens has always been the vocation of thousands of animators in the sports movement, whether volunteers or professionals. Teaching them to respect the environment in which they live and raising their awareness of sustainable development issues is now also part of their approach.
By creating pleasure, emotion, and dreams, removing social, ethnic or religious barriers, sport is, of course, a generator of social bonds. Because everyone is equal in a locker room or on a field, because the very notion of a club generates a sense of belonging and thus a unique existence, the sports club plays an essential role in personal development.
By giving everyone a chance, providing those who simply have the desire with the opportunity to achieve their potential, sport is a remarkable vector of integration. Through our national teams or during major events that we can organize on our territory, an identity sentiment is expressed, which legitimizes a certain national pride.
Health, education, social bonds, and integration are issues to which the next government will necessarily have to provide solutions that must align with the necessity to protect the nation’s finances.
Certainly, our proposals cannot constitute a miracle solution nor produce short-term effects. But, because we are also convinced that prevention is better than cure, we say to our future governors with the full strength of our convictions as activists of the sports associative movement: Ladies and gentlemen, by investing in sport, you will help strengthen the foundations of our society while ultimately reducing the public debt that affects the future of our children.
So, dare! Dare the gamble of a more athletic country and thus a more dynamic, more engaged, more efficient one.
Dare to bet on sport, for the future of France.
