In an online petition, a collective of teachers, elected officials, and players in the sporting world in Seine-Saint-Denis are asking for more resources from the State for the practice of sport at school and outside . They point out the lack and dilapidated sports infrastructure in this department which will host the Olympics in 2024.
The PE teachers of Seine-Saint-Denis are speaking out. Gathered collectively with local elected officials, parents and members of association sport, they launched an online petition last Thursday. Their goal : “make public investment needs for PE and association sport heard in the 93.”
On the site Change.orgthe Permanent Collective for the Defense and Promotion of PE, school sport and the sports movement in Seine-Saint-Denis (COPER 93) calls on the government to “rreduce the deficiencies of equipment and sports spaces” in the departement.
The text of the petition notes in particular that in Seine-Saint-Denis, there are 16 sports facilities per 10,000 inhabitants. Far from the national average which is 50 facilities per 10,000 inhabitants. “There is a severe lack of resources to teach“, notes Hugo Pontais, PE teacher in Pantin and spokesperson for the collective. A little less than a year before the Paris Olympics, the signatories ask “a structuring public investment plan for the construction of sports facilities.”
“We need new infrastructures that make it possible to reduce inequalities in the practice of sport at school, but also outside“, insists the man who is also a union representative of the SNEP-FSU. He deplores the lack of financial resources from local authorities for sport.
“Here too, there is inequality because not all cities are in the same boat.“, according to this resident of Pantin. A problem that prevents them from “operate the public sports service“, according to the petition.
Finally, the signatories request the implementation of a plan to renovate the department’s sports facilities. On average, they estimate that they are “over 40 years old.” Hugo Pontais note that “many physical education teachers complain about the obsolescence of the equipment.“
As such, the PE teacher says that “in the gyms we use, there are sometimes broken doors, poorly functioning showers and dilapidated changing rooms or even dried rats on the floor“According to him, this forces his colleagues to work in poor conditions.”We often say that gymnasiums are our classrooms. However, it would be hard to imagine a mathematics teacher teaching in a room at 9 degrees in winter, or a history teacher having to walk half an hour to get to the place of his lesson. For us, these are daily constraints“, he points out.
In addition to EPS, the signatories also denounce inequalities in access to sport within associations in the department. “There is a real problem, particularly with regard to women’s sport and disabled sport, which are given very little emphasis. The State must give more resources to communities to encourage the accessibility of sports clubs.”, denounces the union representative.
Another inequality raised by the collective: limited access to swimming lessons for children. The collective writes that the department has 0.45 pools per 10,000 inhabitants, “half the national average.” Consequence: 40% of students do not validate the “swimming” diploma in Seine-Saint-Denis.
This petition comes less than a year before the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Since 2017, the government intends to leave an “Olympic legacy” in Seine-Saint-Denis at the end of the competitions. The spokesperson for the collective fears that only a tiny part of this heritage will be dedicated to sport.
“In reality, only 10% of the budget of this inheritance will be dedicated to sport. Of course, there will be the renovation of swimming pools, and other initiatives, but most of the time this will only concern urban development, which is a shame.” The spokesperson hopes that this legacy “will go beyond communication issues, because we really need to give impetus to sports practice in the department.”
For its part, the department of Seine-Saint-Denis assures to support “the renovation of sports equipment by local authorities“, explains Zainaba Said Anzum, elected delegate in charge of sports at the departmental council.
In this sense, the departmental council has launched for several years a plan for the renovation and construction of sports spaces in order to “allow everyone to practice sport at the desired level”, according to the elected official.
To encourage the practice of sport among middle school students, the department launched the Sports Pass in 2022 for 5th grade students. A 100 euro coupon to help them register in the department’s sports clubs. A way of “fight against the dropout from sport that we observe around the age of 12“, said Zainaba Sad Anzum.
For Seine-Saint-Denis, the Île-de-France region plans the launch of two operations as part of the plan “sports equipment in 93” in high schools by the end of 2023. This involves the renovation of two gymnasiums located respectively in Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen.
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