Listeners have undoubtedly taken to the Paris 2024 Games and this success has been concretely reflected in the traffic on the Franceinfo website and application with a record: 289 million visits in July. But that has not stopped listeners from writing to us and making criticisms. Nathalie Iannetta, Director of Sports at Radio France, answers the listeners.
Emmanuelle Daviet: First observation: the almost exclusive focus on French athletes to the detriment of more balanced coverage that could have given more prominence to foreign athletes. Some listeners said they were shocked by this “chauvinistic” approach. I quote them. What do you say to this criticism, Nathalie Iannetta?
Nathalie Iannetta : First, I’m going to thank the listeners because you’re right, we had a lot of messages during these Olympic Games, so thank you for their loyalty. Then, on this “chauvinistic” side, in quotes, they’re right. But there are several explanations. The first is that we always talk about athletes at home. And if you spent your holidays in Italy or the United States, you’ve necessarily only heard about Americans and Italians, for example. Then, because our French team was particularly successful and, unlike other countries, France is often in many disciplines. So yes, we obviously went to see the French a lot. And then still, the big stars, they had their place at the Olympics, I’m thinking of Armand Duplantis, Simone Biles, I’m thinking of Noah Lyles. On the parathletes, there too, the big international stars Markus Rehm, Bebe Vio, Oksana Masters. We also talked a lot about them, but our French athletes were so successful that they took up a lot, a lot of space, I admit.
Emmanuelle Daviet: Listeners also believe that certain disciplines such as sailing, golf, horse riding and surfing have been largely ignored on Franceinfo in favor of more publicized sports such as swimming or judo. They see this as a treatment favoring the events taking place in Paris and therefore a form of Parisianism or prejudices against sports considered elitist. How do you receive these remarks?
Nathalie Iannetta : So on golf, it’s not wrong. It’s true that it’s a bit linked to what we said earlier. There weren’t many great French performances. On the other hand, for horse riding and sailing, that’s not true. We made room for the great performances of French sportsmen and women, both in sailing in Marseille and at the Château de Versailles for horse riding. And on Parisianism, well there, really, I’m outraged because we were also in Lille for team sports, first and second week, basketball and handball and we were in Châteauroux often, very often, including there during the Para-athletics because it’s a big Olympic site and so there was no Parisianist or elitist choice in that.
Emmanuelle Daviet: So, precisely, para-athletics. Let’s come to the Paralympic Games which end tomorrow. And the recurring criticism from listeners is the systematic use of the prefix “para” before the name of the disciplines. They consider that this stigmatizes disabled athletes by unnecessarily differentiating them from their able-bodied counterparts. What do you think about this?
Nathalie Iannetta : I understand that too, this remark. Moreover, if you listen to the Paralympic broadcasts on our channels from the beginning, we say “para” less and less. We say swimming, we say judo. But that’s also how these sports and these athletes are defined because that’s the real name. There are sports that are not para. For example, I’m thinking of rugby, it’s wheelchair rugby. Same for basketball, same for blind football, same for volleyball, it’s sitting volleyball. So if there’s para in front, it’s because that’s the name of the organizers and international institutions. But it’s true that objectively, more and more, we talk about our judokas, our cyclists, our swimmers because they are all great.
