Beijing 2008 - Paris against the boycott, policies get involved

Five months of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and while demonstrations were suppressed in blood in Lhasa, Tibet (see our article), France took action Sunday against the boycott of the Games. The Secretary of State for Human Rights, Rama Yade, in fact clearly stated on Europe 1 that France is "not in favour of a boycott" stressing that "in history," such actions are "rarely effective." But she claimed that "light will be shed at the earliest opportunity" to "very disturbing events" in Tibet and requested that "the peaceful demonstrators who were imprisoned were released." "An absolutely intolerable obscenity" At the same time, officials have defended the use of such a boycott to protest against the attitude of China in Tibet. For the philosopher Benard-Henri Levy, "the Olympic Games had already not make much sense in this China that flouts every day human rights (...) the shadow of the suppression of Tibetan monks, (they) become an obscenity absolutely unbearable: I do not see how Democrats can avoid calling their boycott today, "he said on RTL. Even speeches from the MP and former socialist minister Jack Lang. But, he said, "would convince many countries" to participate. "I support, while seeking votes that it does not remain unfulfilled," he added in Le Parisien. He accused the french government to "follow" in the denunciation of China, believing that "this cowardice vis-à-vis Tibet is unacceptable." "I have not heard that during the trip to Beijing, the French authorities had raised any questions on Tibet," he said about the trip to China by Nicolas Sarkozy, in November. Badges for Tibet? Partisan a less radical solution, the former Minister of Justice Robert Badinter socialist, a signatory in 2000 of a manifesto for the parliamentary french Tibet, which for a boycott is "unrealistic", suggested that all athletes competing at the Olympic Games wear badges advocating the Tibetan cause. "Imagine if all those who will carry the Olympics in the stadium immense Beijing badges marked with" Long live free Tibet 'or' Obey the Tibetans' (...) This would have a considerable impact, "he launched RTL. In sports, the president of the French Federation of judo, Jean-Luc Rougé, found that the organization of the Olympic Games in Beijing was more dangerous to the Chinese regime that any boycott, in an interview with the Parisien / Aujourd ' hui en France. "Without the Olympics, the world would not have spoken in the same way events that have just taken place in Tibet," pleaded the old judoka, who took part in 1980 at the Olympic Games in Moscow, boycotted by several Western countries. Silence MOK The sports world is pronounced elsewhere overwhelmingly against a boycott. "There is no doubt that through the Games, after the Games, the theme of human rights in China is experiencing a huge step forward," said with optimism and the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) Alejandro Blanco. Sunday, only a few isolated athletes had raised the possibility of a boycott, on the query mode, particularly in Germany (see box below), while the IOC has remained silent. Project promoter Games, it is solely responsible for the choice of Beijing for the race organisers. At the time, in 2001, the institution Olympic had already faced a volley of criticism from all over the world, for having granted the Olympics to a scheme in conflict with human rights.