Paris (AFP)
The French gymnastics team announced on Friday that it was giving up participating in the next European Championships organized in Turkey in December due to the Covid-19 and "the current geopolitical tensions between France and Turkey", according to a statement .
"Insofar as we are not able to fully guarantee the safety of the French delegation, it seemed to us more responsible to give up" the meeting scheduled from December 9 to 20 in Mersin (south), indicates in a press release James Blateau, president of the French Gymnastics Federation.
France and Turkey are currently experiencing an episode of diplomatic tensions, linked in particular to disagreements over Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean.
These tensions have further intensified since the end of October, when Mr. Erdogan called for a boycott of French products, accusing his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron of "Islamophobia" for having defended the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad, after the attack which was victim Samuel Paty, professor of history and geography, beheaded on October 16 in Conflans-Saint-Honorine (Yvelines) by an Islamist terrorist.
Mr Erdogan accused Mr Macron of leading a "campaign of hatred" against Islam and questioned his "state of mental health".
"We were obviously aware of these tensions which were added to the health crisis but we expected from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry in charge of sports, objective elements to allow us to definitively stop our decision", explains also in the press release the national technical director Kevinn Rabaud.
This decision by the French Gymnastics Federation will have consequences for its athletes in the perspective of the Tokyo Olympic Games, rescheduled for the summer of 2021.
"The European Championships were a stage identified as the first step in the preparation of the Olympic Games. Their cancellation disrupts the preparation schedule and we must urgently think about the implementation of a highlight for our collectives during the month of December ", underlines the DTN.
Russia, Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, in particular, have also announced their absence in Turkey, for reasons related this time only to the health situation.
© 2020 AFP