“Clearly, there is no boycott effect,” a television ratings specialist told Agence France-Presse.
But the debate over the ethical quandaries of the tournament is not entirely over. Macron’s trip this week reinvigorated some of his political opponents, who for months have called for a boycott. On Wednesday, a group of left-wing parliamentarians held a minute’s silence to mourn the migrant workers who died in Qatar in the run-up to the competition. And unlike previous World Cups, major cities like Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille and Strasbourg will not be showing the final on giant screens in vast public viewing areas. The bars in Paris are expected to be packed and some fans may not find space to watch the game.
Activists protest against the World Cup outside the Qatari embassy in Paris on November 15.Credit:access point
Boycott advocates point to a moral obligation that might be stronger in France than in other countries. Investigators are examining whether French officials, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy, played a role in helping Qatar win the World Cup bid, French newspaper reported. the world reported last month. And amid an explosive investigation this week into allegations that current and former EU officials took bribes from Qatar, Macron’s government is facing growing calls to rein in Qatari influence in France.
“It was out of the question to set up public viewing areas,” Paris deputy mayor who oversees sports Pierre Rabadan said earlier this year of the city’s decision not to host public viewing events. He cited Qatar’s working conditions, environmental concerns and the fact that fans would be standing out in the cold because the tournament is taking place in winter and not, as usual, in summer.
Yet of all the French cities that chose to boycott the World Cup, the Paris move was the most baffling, critics said.
The city’s powerful soccer club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) is owned by Qatar Sports Investments. And the leftist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who ran unsuccessfully against Macron in the presidential election earlier this year, has not shied away from showing her public support for the team when it seemed to fit her city’s interests in the past.
French players celebrate after the World Cup semi-final match between France and Morocco at the Al Bayt stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, on December 14.Credit:access point
When Brazilian soccer star Neymar transferred to PSG in 2017, the Hidalgo administration allowed the Eiffel Tower to be lit up in the club’s colors.
“She depends a lot on the image” of the team, Bernard Caïazzo, a shareholder in French soccer club AS Saint-Étienne, said in October.
In many ways, the Paris boycott of a World Cup hosted by a country that owns the city’s most valuable soccer club has epitomized the dilemmas faced by many national teams, cities, and governments during this World Cup: sending a stronger signal to often it would have gone against their own interests.
For David Samzun, mayor of the western French city of Saint-Nazaire and, like Hidalgo, a member of the Socialist Party, a boycott of the World Cup would have been “unsustainable.”
Charging
In an interview, Samzun accused Qatar of “disrespecting human rights” and criticized this year’s tournament as “environmental nonsense.” But he, too, took aim at the Paris boycott, calling it “hypocritical” and suggesting that local officials should never have held their current post in the first place.
Unlike many other cities, Saint-Nazaire will show the World Cup final in a public viewing area on Sunday. A public broadcast of the semifinal on Wednesday has already drawn more than 1,000 people to the city’s fan zone at a former submarine base.
“The economic crisis, the energy crisis, the war at the gates of Europe. When we look at the news, it’s all very sad,” she said.
The World Cup, he added, is a rare opportunity to “bring people together, to look for popular and joyful moments, and I think we in France really need that.”
For Henrik Selin, a Boston University researcher who focuses on global and regional politics, it’s an understandable position.
“There is a lot of evidence to suggest that FIFA is a completely corrupt organization,” he said. “But I think that should be separated from the tournament once it has started.”
The boycotts of French cities appear to be “more about domestic politics than international relations,” he added. “I don’t think that will help improve the human rights record in Qatar or any other country.”
But tournament critic Grün was more optimistic about the chances for change, largely because the focus on the role of French officials in awarding the World Cup to Qatar seems greater than ever.
“Unfortunately, it is too late” for this World Cup, he said. But it “places many more moral obligations on France for the future.”
Washington Post