“We are calling for a referendum on the candidacy of the French Alps for the 2030 Winter Olympic Games”

2023-10-12 09:30:04

France is becoming the savior of the Olympic movement: without waiting for the success or failure of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) in the capital, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions. have formalized their candidacy for the 2030 Winter Games.

If a national Olympic committee finds itself in the situation of refining their bid for the Winter Olympic Games while preparing for the imminent Summer Games – an extremely rare case – it is because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not can’t find a reliable host elsewhere.

The ski industry in the Spanish Pyrenees briefly supported the Pyrenees-Barcelona candidacy, but opponents mobilized five thousand protesters on May 15, 2022, with the slogan “Per un Pirineu Viu, Aturem els JJOO d’hivern!” » (“For a living Pyrenees. Let’s stop the Winter Olympics”). The following month, Spain abandoned its candidacy. Vancouver (Canada), host city in 2010, showed interest, but the British Columbia government refused to spend billions of dollars for two weeks of sport.

Read also: Winter Olympics 2030: the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and PACA regions propose a joint candidacy

After successive abandonments which have now become customary, the IOC counted on a Japanese city, Sapporo, but criticism against the Olympic movement is very strong there, in particular because of a corruption scandal surrounding the Tokyo Games. He was therefore forced to modify the normal deadline, namely the awarding of the Games seven years before, to save time.

Laurent Wauquiez and Renaud Muselier

It is in this context that a French member of the IOC, Guy Drut, proposed a joint candidacy from the two Alpine regions of France. The two presidents of the said regions, Laurent Wauquiez and Renaud Muselier, reached an agreement and they met the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, on September 7.

Read also: The IOC can no longer sell its Winter Olympics

So, if France is organizing the 2030 Winter Games, it is because the others refused. It was for exactly the same reason that Paris had its Summer Games. During Paris’s candidacy, the population was never consulted. However, at the time, a few voices called for a referendum, like Hamburg (Germany), another candidate city for the 2024 Olympic Games, where residents expressed their rejection with 51.7% of “Nein” votes.

Seven years later, we feel obliged to take the same approach again. We are calling for a referendum on the candidacy of the French Alps for the 2030 Winter Games.

We believe this request is legitimate. Not only because we have now discovered, with Paris 2024, the extent of the impacts that the Games can produce on our green spaces, our public freedoms and our social rights. But also because it was the IOC which itself raised the possibility of a systematic referendum.

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