Every day, the morning of Europe 1 looks back on one of the sporting events that make the news.
This Friday, Virginie Phulpin returns to the initiative of basketball player Tony Parker.
He alerted the government to the state of French sport but, according to Virginie Phulpin, our policies are only interested in sport when it comes to victory or achievement.
Tony Parker to the rescue of French sport.
The former basketball player calls for help from the government to deal with the health crisis.
For Virginie Phulpin, it's good news to see him commit, but it says a lot about the way the sport is perceived in France.
Do you remember what they said about Jacques Chirac during the football world cup in France in 1998?
He is a president who loves athletes more than sport.
And in fact, that pretty much sums up our country's relationship with this sector.
Sports players have been sounding the alarm for months.
From the Olympic committee to club presidents, from tribunes to rants, everyone cries out for famine in the face of the health crisis, expresses their fears about the future of sport and asks on their knees for help from the State.
For what answer?
Nothing, or almost.
We take care of it, we take care of it.
But we still don't see anything coming.
And there, for a few days, Tony Parker in person has taken up the torch.
The best French basketball player in history warns in turn that without state aid, part of the sports clubs are in danger of disappearing.
And there, miracle, the government is all ears.
We call each other, we listen to each other, we give each other Roxana and Jean-Michel to talk about the Minister of Sports and that of Education.
American style, what.
And we promise to talk to each other and find solutions.
Yes, it's hard to pretend Tony Parker doesn't exist, so his word causes a reaction.
It's as if we needed a figure of a savior.
That's the impression it gives.
So beware, it's great news that Tony Parker has decided to get involved so much.
In addition, he does not do it just for his club Villeurbanne, he does not even do it only for basketball, but for the whole of French sport.
Even amateur sport, faced with massive drops in licensees and condemned to shutdown, can find reason to hope.
The quadruple NBA champion did not let go on the floors, a priori he will not let go of the ministers either.
So much the better.
But why did we need a champion of his caliber so that the complaints of French sport are finally taken seriously?
Quite simply because in France, at the highest level of the State, we are only interested in sport through the icons, the winners.
Those who look pretty in the photo with their cut.
Sport on a daily basis, the women and men who work every day in clubs, in associations, and who fight for sport to survive, it's much less glamorous.
It's great to see a Tony Parker take matters into his own hands, but it's still sad that the sport itself is not a priority.