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French President Emmanuel Macron believes that the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics can serve as «a historic opportunity» for the country to host major esports events.
Macron was elected for a second term as President last month, defeating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a run-off.
He has expressed a desire to use Paris 2024 «to put sport at the heart of the nation,» and believes the Games could help to catalyse the further development of esports in France.
«Video games are an important component of French cultural soft cultural power and of our country’s image around the world,» Macron told The Big Whale.
«But also from our ability to understand the projections and representations of our society too.
«That is why I also want us to have a strategic approach to continue creating the right conditions to promote France as the country for video games.
«We have adapted the video game tax credit: we want to make it permanent and continue to work on financing and trainings to locate and attract productions in our country.
«Finally, I’m not forgetting the esport, another field of French excellence with teams like Team Vitality or Karmine Corp.
«In this respect, we have a historic opportunity: the 2024 Olympic Games.
«It is up to us to take full advantage to establish a link between the two worlds’ Olympiads by hosting the world’s greatest esporting events: CS:GO Majors, Worlds of League of Legends and The International of Dota 2.»
Macron was seen wearing a Team Vitality hoodie during the election campaign.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) forged closer ties with virtual sport last year with the creation of the Olympic Virtual Series involving baseball, cycling, rowing, sailing and motorsport, although President Thomas Bach insisted that games where «violence is glorified or accepted» will not be welcomed.
Talks have been held between the IOC and the Singapore National Olympic Council with a view to the country staging the first in-person Olympic Virtual Series Festival in 2023.
The IOC’s Esports and Gaming Liaison Group is chaired by David Lappartient, President of the International Cycling Union.
In 2020, he wrote to International Federations informing them that the IOC does not plan to recognise any organisation as the world governing body for esports, a status which both the International Esports Federation and Global Esports Federation claim they hold.
There has also been speculation in Australia that esports could feature at Brisbane 2032 – a possibility IOC Coordination Commission chair Kirsty Coventry has appeared to entertain this week.
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Patrick Burke is a junior reporter at insidethegames.biz, having joined the team in 2021. He started out as the programme editor for local non-league football club Cammell Laird 1907 in 2014 at the age of 15, and went on to serve as the club’s media officer for six years, all on a voluntary basis. He studied history at the University of Sheffield from 2017, graduating with a first-class honours degree in 2020 where his dissertation was on the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona in 1936. Whilst at Sheffield, Burke was sports editor and then deputy editor of Forge Press, one of the United Kingdom’s leading student newspapers. Burke spent a summer studying at Waseda University in Tokyo in 2018, and during sixth form travelled to Sierra Leone on an immersion retreat as well as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
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For nearly 15 years now, insidethegames.biz has been at the forefront of reporting fearlessly on what happens in the Olympic Movement. As the first website not to be placed behind a paywall, we have made news about the International Olympic Committee, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and other major events more accessible than ever to everybody.
insidethegames.biz has established a global reputation for the excellence of its reporting and breadth of its coverage. For many of our readers from more than 200 countries and territories around the world the website is a vital part of their daily lives. The ping of our free daily email alert, sent every morning at 6.30am UK time 365 days a year, landing in their inbox, is as a familiar part of their day as their first cup of coffee.
Even during the worst times of the COVID-19 pandemic, insidethegames.biz maintained its high standard of reporting on all the news from around the globe on a daily basis. We were the first publication in the world to signal the threat that the Olympic Movement faced from the coronavirus and have provided unparalleled coverage of the pandemic since.
As the world begins to emerge from the COVID crisis, insidethegames.biz would like to invite you to help us on our journey by funding our independent journalism. Your vital support would mean we can continue to report so comprehensively on the Olympic Movement and the events that shape it. It would mean we can keep our website open for everyone. Last year, nearly 25 million people read insidethegames.biz, making us by far the biggest source of independent news on what is happening in world sport.
Every contribution, however big or small, will help maintain and improve our worldwide coverage in the year ahead. Our small and dedicated team were extremely busy last year covering the re-arranged Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, an unprecedented logistical challenge that stretched our tight resources to the limit.
The remainder of 2022 is not going to be any less busy, or less challenging. We had the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing, where we sent a team of four reporters, and coming up are the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the Summer World University and Asian Games in China, the World Games in Alabama and multiple World Championships. Plus, of course, there is the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Unlike many others, insidethegames.biz is available for everyone to read, regardless of what they can afford to pay. We do this because we believe that sport belongs to everybody, and everybody should be able to read information regardless of their financial situation. While others try to benefit financially from information, we are committed to sharing it with as many people as possible. The greater the number of people that can keep up to date with global events, and understand their impact, the more sport will be forced to be transparent.
Support insidethegames.biz for as little as £10 – it only takes a minute. If you can, please consider supporting us with a regular amount each month. Thank you.
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