MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP
French supporters gathered to watch the World Cup quarter-final between France and Germany, on a giant screen at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, July 4, 2014.
MONDIAL-2022 – The list of French cities that refuse to show the matches of the Global in Qatar elongates. This Monday, October 3, the city of Paris announces that it will not install fan zones or giant screens in the public space to broadcast the matches.
“We took the decision several weeks ago not to set up celebration areas for the World Cup in Qatar”explain to HuffPost the deputy in charge of Sport, Pierre Rabadan.
“This event represents the exact opposite model to the one we want to promote for Paris-2024. This is particularly true in terms of sustainability, with stadiums built for this competition alone, which will also be air-conditioned”he continues, before denouncing “the working conditions of workers on construction sites and respect for human rights (…) undermined”.
“The fact that the World Cup takes place at this time of year (from November 20 to December 18, editor’s note) is the second reason which leads us not to organize these celebration zones. At a time when we are calling for energy sobriety, that would have seemed contradictory”explains Pierre Rabadan.
After Marseille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg or Lille
Marseilles, BordeauxNancy and Reims joined this Monday the list of French cities refusing for humanitarian and environmental reasons to promote World Cup matches in Qatar, after Strasbourg, Lille or Rodez.
The socialist mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan described the competition as “human and environmental disaster” while the mayor of Lille Martine Aubry (PS) had denounced on Saturday a “Nonsense with regard to human rights, the environment and sport”.
Among the reasons for this boycott include the treatment of immigrant workers and the number of deaths in the construction of the eight stadiums of the World Cup.
While the official toll is only three dead, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported in a report that 50 workers died in workplace accidents in Qatar in 2020, and 500 were seriously injured, a figure that could be higher according to her due to shortcomings in the accident recording system.
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