France’s Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera wore a sweater with rainbow-coloured sleeves to France’s World Cup quarter-final in Qatar on Saturday in a message of support for gay rights
France’s Sports Minister Amelie Oudea- Castera wore a sweater with rainbow- coloured sleeves to France’s World Cup quarter-final in Qatar on Saturday in a communication of support for gay rights. Oudea- Castera, a former professional tennis player, watched the game from the personality box as France beat England 2- 1 to move a step closer to successfully defending their title. The rights of the LGBTQ community and the use of the rainbow symbol have been a intermittent point of discussion at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal.
“It was important to express my support for mortal rights on the whole, specially LGBT rights. and to do it in an unaggressive way with respects to Qatar, which is our mate,” she told Franceinfo radio.
Saturday was the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General assembly in Paris in 1948, she said.
Before the event, the French capital and several other major metropolises said they would not show matches from Qatar on public defenses amid calls for a boycott of the competition.
President Emmanuel Macron, who argued that” we mustn’t politicise sport”, is set to travel to Qatar on Wednesday to watch France play Morocco in thesemi-final.
He’d promised to support France in person if they made it to thesemi-final.
“I’ll come back with the chairman on Wednesday,” Oudea- Castera told Franceinfo radio.” We are working the details out.
“He( Macron) made this commitment and he’ll recognize it with pleasure.”
Macron’s presence underlines the close ties between France and Qatar, which is an important gas supplier to Europe and major customer for French military tackle.
France’s game with Morocco will be given added spice by the countries’ history, with Morocco one of France’s north African colonies during the 20th century.
France is also home to large Moroccan and Franco- Moroccan populations, with thousands of suckers seen out in the thoroughfares celebrating on Saturday after the Atlas Lions beat Portugal 1- 0.
Around,000 people headed to the Champs- Elysees in Paris on Saturday night where French and Moroccan sympathizers celebrated together, numerous of them with torn commitment.
“It’ll be as if my father were playing against my mama ,” Lilia, a 36- time-old woman of Franco- Moroccan origin, told AFP with a smile.
” I am monstrously proud, especially when you come from these two societies, France and Morocco,” Hassan Ikan told AFP in a rumbustious bar just after the match.
“Seeing them both in asemi-final, it’s just maximum joy,” he added.
The Champs- Elysees fests were estranged late on Saturday night after police were targeted with fireworks and other shells, the megacity’s police department told AFP.
Seventy- four people were arrested and police fired teargas to disperse the crowd.
Football matches involving France and north African brigades have been a source of divisive pressure about immigration and public identity in the history.
A France- Algeria friendly in 2001 in Paris saw the French public hymn roundly booed in what was the first meeting on the pitch between the countries since Algeria’s independence in 1962.
Conservative and far-right politicians were incensed that numerous of those booing were supposedly French people of Algerian origin.
The mood wasn’t helped as the match had to be abandoned due to a pitch irruption with France leading 4- 1.
“The Algerian public hymn wasn’t booed, there was respect for Algeria,” said French player Lilian Thuram latterly.
“Why did these youthful people, utmost of whom were born in France, boo their country’s hymn?”
Algeria’s victorious crusade at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations also saw clashes with police in France during addict fests. Read More FIFA News…
