Paris (AFP)
The boss of the Greens Julien Bayou called on Wednesday to boycott the FIFA World Cup in 2022 in Qatar, a country "suspected of financing terrorism", if we want to be "serious" in "the fight against radical Islam" .
“What surprises me is that the On the Move majority accuses everyone of being a supporter of Islamism and the like, but when it comes to being consistent and saying no to Saudi Arabia, who is responsible for the dismemberment of a journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, or not in Qatar, accused of financing terrorism in particular in Somalia, well there long live the sport and long live the business. It is not possible ", estimated the national secretary EELV, responding in the affirmative to the need for a boycott.
"If we are serious with these questions of the fight against radical Islam, Qatar, a supporter of Wahhabism, is also one of the supporters of this dissemination, suspected by the European Commission of financing terrorism", insisted Mr. Bayou, also head of the list of environmentalists for regional elections in Ile-de-France.
He also recalled that more than 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar, according to the British daily The Guardian, since the attribution in 2010 of the World Cup scheduled for November-December 2022.
Asked about BFMTV on Monday, the EELV mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle also called for a boycott, judging that "this is an opportunity to show that the sports movement is not outside the world".
The hypothesis of a boycott of the event by certain nations returned to the table after the information from the Guardian.
Norwegian football will examine this possibility in June, advocated by some clubs.
And the German, Dutch and Danish selections have drawn attention in recent days with symbolic actions on alleged human rights abuses in the country.
In France, the president of the Federation Noël Le Graët had, for his part, evacuated at the beginning of March to AFP the hypothesis of a boycott by ensuring that the national team "will go to Qatar if it qualifies" for the World Cup. 2022.
In the ranks of politicians, without going so far as to call for a boycott, the number two of the National Gathering Jordan Bardella said in mid-March "extremely uncomfortable" facing the holding of the World Cup in Qatar, a country which "advocates an extremely radical reading of political Islam".
© 2021 AFP