In the great laundry launched by the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the failings of sports federations, the State looks like a sock that has been forgotten in the drum of the washing machine. Guarantor of the proper functioning of sports federations, through a delegation contract which links them to the Ministry of Sports, the latter has not however been spared by the rapporteurs who point out “significant failures in the exercise of its prerogatives and in its role as guarantor of respect for ethics and protection of the integrity of practitioners”, going so far as to speak of “federations under fictitious supervision”, in January 2024.
The State in the same bag as the Federations
The whole question is whether, like the federations, the State has heard the message and taken measures to regain control and signal the end of recess. Asked by us what it thinks of the alarming conclusions of this report, the Ministry of Sports responds that “these problems in the fight against sexual violence in sport are not new for (him) since following the movement of freedom of speech on violence in sport in 2020, we have initiated a national prevention strategy against violence. »
Four years later, however, its responsibility is still largely engaged, the members of the commission of inquiry regretting in particular that “the State has not fully seized this historic opportunity to raise its level of demands towards the federations and to condition the delegation to specific commitments in terms of strengthening ethics and the protection of practitioners.”
They also criticize the State for not having been sufficiently vigilant to enforce the laws of December 9, 2016, known as the “Sapin II” law, on the protection of whistleblowers and the obligation to put in place a process of anti-corruption reporting, and that of March 1, 2017 which requires federations to have an ethics committee to deal with cases of violence. For its part, the ministry assures that “the control of the integrity of supervisors, the processing of reports of violence, prevention, and training, and the actions initiated for four years continued this year”.
Where are you, the Heritage law?
If we are told that “two CTS positions were created in 2024 to support federations lagging behind in implementing their prevention policy”, radio silence on the other hand with regard to the Signal-Sport cell, Pierre cornerstone of VSS management, and which still only has… three people to centralize the thousands of calls from victims. A figure which has not changed since the investigation report denounced a year ago a “cell (…) clearly not sized to ensure the monitoring and support of the processing of reports by the various actors, ‘as much as the number of reports continues to grow’.
An observation which does not delight the rapporteur Sabrina Sebaihi, who had hoped at the start of the year that “the resources of the Signal Sport unit would be strengthened” as quickly as possible. “Three people is totally ridiculous,” she whispers to us eleven months later. Last year, when we went to visit them, they told us that they had already received more than 600 reports in just a few months. »
As for the major Heritage 2024 law, promised quickly after the holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and supposed to provide clear answers to remedy the dysfunctions of the federations, the deputies are now wondering if it will see the light of day. “It should have been voted on before the Games to be able to produce immediate effects, and today we are no longer even talking about an examination in 2025, it has completely disappeared from the radar,” complains Régis Juanico, the former deputy and expert in sports public policy. On this point either, the Ministry of Sports did not wish to provide us with any answers.
The former minister, the report and the activists
“We had decided collectively that we would let the sequence of JOPs pass because we wanted to be constructive but, for the moment, it is clear that we have not seen the beginning of a piece of text, regrets in turn Sabrina Sebaihi. We say to ourselves that in reality, the underlying idea was to bury all of this discreetly. »
This governmental inertia, not helped by the “funny” year that we have just gone through on the political level, with the dissolution of the National Assembly the day after the legislative elections and the (very) late constitution of a government, does not seem to surprise the rapporteur.
She has not forgotten the reception given to the investigation report by the former Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, herself scratched by the commission over her XXL salary as Director General of the French Sports Federation. tennis.
“The former minister played an extremely important role in the way in which this report was received,” criticizes the EELV MP. She continued to protect a caste of which she herself was a part, that of federation leaders, and to shoot down the report, saying that it was militant, whereas it was produced by all the groups of deputies who made up the national assembly at that time. »
With the new minister, the revolution will wait
As for the new Minister of Sports, Gilles Avérous, he announced the color of what his mission would be during his induction speech on September 23. “I do not come here to revolutionize things because I am aware, convinced that at the Ministry of Sports many things have been done and that today it is enough to continue this dynamic rather than imagining profoundly revolutionizing what has already been done.”
« “It’s a worrying speech that makes me angry,” Sabrina Sebaihi tells us. If we base ourselves on the work of the commission and the number of victims heard, we would tend to believe that the world of sport is in need of a revolution. » »
Which in any case seems to be off to a bad start in view of the new budget granted to the Ministry of Sports, down sharply compared to 2024. “There is a real drain and not only on the old envelope allocated to the JOPs, as they try to put it. make believe the official speech of the ministry. Even if you isolate that, you still find yourself with a drop of 174 million on approximately 900 million of the budget, that’s 20% less credits, chokes Régis Juanico. It is one of the most affected ministries even though it is already one of those which receives the least budget in relation to the nation’s overall expenditure. This is a worrying signal from the government and a huge missed opportunity. »
