Despite the many calls to boycott the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games because of the numerous human rights attacks perpetuated in China, the Minister of Sports will go to Beijing.
Uyghurs or not, France will go. The Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, assured on RTL that the government will be represented at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, which will begin in a week: “There will be a presence of the Minister Delegate for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, probably not at the opening ceremony, but to support our athletes at some point during these Olympics.”
He justifies this approach to games by the fact that “most European countries” have “the same strategy of having a zero or reasonable presence, that is to say not at the level of Head of State or Government, at the opening ceremony”.
“Crude interference”
Since the announcement by several countries, at the end of 2021, of a diplomatic boycott to denounce the attacks on human rights perpetuated in China, in particular with regard to the Uyghurs, pressure has been strong on the French authorities. In a column published Saturday in Release, Raphaël Glucksmann, Christiane Taubira and Yannick Jadot called on the French government not to send any representatives to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing. “No one should go in our name to celebrate the regime of the camps and the slaves”, they hammered.
On January 20, the National Assembly adopted a resolution denouncing the “genocide” of the Uighurs by China, like similar texts adopted in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom or even Canada. A decision qualified as“gross interference in Chinese internal affairs” by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. China denies these accusations and presents the «camps» like the “vocational training centers” designed to keep residents away from religious extremism. They would now be closed because all “students” would have “completed their training”.
“Water gun”
Western studies, based on interpretations of official documents, testimonies of victims and statistical extrapolations, however accuse Beijing of having interned in camps at least a million people, mostly Uyghurs, of carrying out forced sterilizations and abortions or yet to impose forced labour.
A diplomatic boycott of the Games functions as a “water gun to give a signal” having “very little impact”, estimated the French Secretary of State, who favors other measures, much more “effective” Where “powerful”. And to quote “a proposal for a European law to ban all products resulting from forced labor on European markets” which should be voted “under French presidency” of the EU. “That is directly concrete to tell the Chinese not only our dissatisfaction, but that we stop with these commercial channels which allow the forced labor of the Uyghurs.” Behind these beautiful declarations, the majority nevertheless challenged this week a text forcing France to take action to help the Uyghurs.
