WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL CA #341 - National Education and the Paris Olympic Games (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 President Macron had already explained it on the occasion of the

football World Cup in Qatar "we must not politicize sport" and
concerning the Olympic and Paralympic Games, he assures us: "The
strength of Olympism, (...) what motivated us to organize the Games in
France is respect and tolerance.» Popular and consensual values if there
are any, which it is frowned upon to contest and the French State
intends to encourage the support of all, particularly young people.
Linking the promotion of JOPs with the health problem of a sedentary
lifestyle among young people, relying on the Ministry of National
Education, it imposes a rhetoric whose basis must be questioned.

A paternalistic framing
It is appropriate for a State which serves its own interests to
legitimize itself by acting for the good of the people.
The growing sedentary lifestyle of French people, particularly young
people, fueled by an exploding addiction to screens, is currently
defined by health stakeholders as a health emergency.
Never mind, the government got to work to save the good people and had
an idea: promoting physical and sporting activity will be the Great
National Cause of the JOP year (this is timely): Move every day!
"With, to do this, a simple marker: encouraging each individual,
regardless of their age or level of physical fitness, to practice 30
minutes of physical activity every day, on foot or by bike, in yoga or
in dance, this What matters is moving!»
Workers who take the RER at 6 a.m., unemployed men and women who have
plenty of time, mothers of isolated families, students who regularly
skip a meal, children in vulnerable situations: break the cycle of
precariousness: get moving!
Ignorance or contempt whatever, we should not expect anything from
Macronie but this farce is revealing of a favorite of liberalism: the
notion of empowerment which refers everyone to their problems and their
responsibility and whose solution would be found in the will .

Multiple entries
If teachers are missing in front of students, lots of little hands have
been found to write proposals and projects so that teachers can echo the
Olympics in their classes.
Let's take a look at the "Eduscol" site, owned by the State and
essential for anyone who wants to comply with what the institution expects.
 From the Generation 2024 label, a tool to strengthen and multiply the
bridges between school and sport to the GNC 2024 label (Great National
Cause), everyone will find something to participate in this momentum
towards the JOPs and to highlight their establishment which will then
appear on official publications.
 From kindergarten to university, we will go through physical activity
or singing, through plastic arts or video, but games will have to pass!
Sound resources and specially arranged scores allow students and
teachers from schools, colleges and high schools to perform vocal and/or
instrumental interpretations of the Olympic anthem, while the Generation
2024 site offers a choreography of the dance of the OJ. Others will
discover Olympic and Paralympic sports, meet athletes, participate in
Olympics between establishments, visit future Olympic sites and still
others (sales, boilermaking and electricity sectors of a high school)
have created an "academic flame" presented to the Rector of the Academy
of Versailles.
It is not possible here to list all the inventiveness demonstrated by
the ministry.

Kits and stories
"Secularism is a principle of freedom, freedom to believe or not to
believe. It is at the foundation of our society and our school which
must protect students from any ideological, economic and religious
proselytism.» (Education.gouv)

Kindergarten teachers will, however, be able to obtain a "first games"
booklet on the very prolific Eduscol site, the educational interest of
which cannot be found but the Danone visual is very recognizable when it
comes to introducing our students to "eating well".
With the "ocean relay" kit you will find a coloring of a sailboat in the
colors of the Banque Populaire or photos of the skipper Armel Le Cléac'h
saturated with the same brand.
Very early on, students are asked to internalize that water sports and
money go hand in hand.
The Responsible Supporter Kit will allow one to make cardboard supporter
glasses ("from 6 years old") and the other to make their own little
ashtray from recycled material ("from 18 years old") ). With cigarettes
and this ashtray before the age of 18 will we be responsible or
irresponsible?

Elementary school teachers have been directly tasked with distributing
an educational kit and a two-euro commemorative coin to all their
students (i.e. 4 million)... Asking teachers to distribute money while
one of their first demands is the increase in their remuneration as well
as those of the resources allocated to the School can leave one
wondering. How will distributing money to students promote the practice
of sport at school or elsewhere? In addition, cash is prohibited at
school because it is a source of discord, but perhaps we want to prepare
our students for business practice?
A booklet of around ten pages accompanies the piece, four are devoted to
texts written by Emmanuel Macron, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, the Minister of
Sports, and Gabriel Attal when he was Minister of Education, 6 pages are
devoted to games "to become unbeatable" about the Paris Olympics, such
as crosswords and charades.
The booklet for the CP student who is just or not yet a reader is the
same as that for the CM2 student soon to be in middle school... still no
pedagogy in sight but a communication operation worth 16 million euros.

It is also interesting to look at the historical data displayed in the
booklet "At the Heart of Games" intended for elementary school students.
Three personalities, with supporting photographs, embody the history of
the Games.
Pierre de Coubertin is presented as the founder of the modern Olympic
Games, who was committed, among other things, to the development of the
practice of sport at school. While he is a unanimously contested figure,
the little student of 2024 will know no more than that of 1920 about
racism, sexism, colonialism and the baron's connections with Nazism.

The evil spirits will be able to console themselves, the presentation of
the baron is followed by those of Alice Milliat embodying here the
conquest of the participation of women in the Olympic Games and of
Ludwig Guttmann founder of the Paralympic Games.

In this same booklet, the choice of five events from the history of the
games and their treatment denote ideological choices. The victory of
Owens, a black American in 36 in Berlin, the raised fists of Smith and
Carlos in 1968 in Mexico, the common flag of the two Koreas in 2000, the
recognition of the rights of refugee athletes in 2016 recall humanist
struggles and their context is specified.
The fifth event is treated differently: "The Games were sometimes the
scene of acts of violence. At the Munich Olympics (1972), Palestinian
terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage to demand the release of
Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The outcome of this hostage-taking
was tragic: 11 Israeli athletes were killed.» The verdict of the reader
unaware of the context will probably be final.
As for the exclusion of Smith and Carlos by the IOC, there is no mention
of it either.

"Putting sport at the heart of our public policies, interministeriality
and the republican pact".
This is the ambition of the Macron government.
Remember that sport and physical activity are not equivalent. Sport is a
constructed historical social fact, born in the 18th century in Great
Britain in the great schools. It spread in Europe at the same time as
the bourgeoisie established its economic and cultural domination. For
sociologist Jean-Marie Brohm, sport is governed by authorities which set
the rules of the game in a relatively arbitrary manner while adorning
themselves with a veneer of universality, and therefore objectivity.
Therein lies the eminently political character of sport: creating
rankings based on the standards that its leaders decree, while making
them appear immutable. But Jean-Marie Brohm's analysis does not stop
there. According to him, this institution of modern sport is based on
four pillars which are none other than those of capitalist commercial
society: performance, hierarchy, bureaucracy and advertising. Indeed,
competition, surpassing oneself - and above all others -, the
celebration of winners and contempt for losers, in a word the cult of
individual performance undoubtedly constitutes the basis of the system
of neoliberal values which supports the regime current capitalist.

Sport and separatism
Popular, sporting practice is already a little less popular: statistical
surveys show that it remains unevenly widespread in the population, to
the detriment of women and members of the working classes, precisely.
The obstacles to this practice are as much cultural as material.
In France, 10% of students will never go to the swimming pool due to
lack of infrastructure or means of transport. In Seine Saint Denis, one
student in two does absolutely no activity outside of PE classes and
upon entering sixth form, seven students in ten do not know how to swim
due to the few time slots allocated.

The Olympics and major sporting events in general are closely linked to
money and trade. They could not take place without the funding they provide.
Here again the mystification is gross: while health is identified as a
national cause, the champion of "junk food" Coca Cola is among the
official partners of the event.
An international study published in The Lancet in February 2024
concluded that "a sedentary lifestyle is leading humanity to an
anthropological turning point and that prevention efforts focused on
individual behaviors or on isolated changes in the built or food
environment have had little impact on the prevalence of obesity, in part
because healthy foods and the practice of sport and other active
lifestyles are not affordable or accessible by people with low income or
low self-sufficiency.

Finally, studies have shown that hosting sporting events did not have an
immediate or delayed effect on the practice of sporting activities by
populations (Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 2023).

And National Education in all this?
This year, when nearly 691 million euros are being cut for National
Education while public education is failing and the 93 is asking for an
"emergency plan". Public spending for the JOPs, initially estimated at 3
billion, is currently estimated at 4 or 5 billion.
While some angry establishments returned the "booklet and coin" packages
to the sender, elsewhere students were able to run to the bakery with
their coin, other coins are currently selling for several hundred euros
on Leboncoin.
The students of the Anatole France school in St Denis are simply smoked
by the interchange in the Pleyel district and 3,000 students will be
evicted from their accommodation at the Crous to accommodate partners
and volunteers of the Games.

Prices for the athletics finals at the Stade de France have been set at
85 euros for seats located at the very top of the stadium, in the
corners, then at 195 euros for those just below, and the vast majority
will be sold at 385 and 690 euros per unit, so for students already
victims of capitalism there will remain retransmissions which will
continue to enrich shareholders.
The media and schools will have sung the romance of national unity
during the Olympic truce because "the strength of Olympism, (...) what
motivated us to organize the Games in France is respect and tolerance.»
With the objective of making Universal National Service and uniforms
compulsory in schools, recruitment in the service of the powerful will
reach another level.

Zelda

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