Several cities in France have finally decided to install giant screens to allow supporters of the Blues to follow the semi-final of the Football World Cup together, despite the controversies surrounding the awarding of the competition to Qatar, the no – respect for human rights and environmental damage.
Thus, the city of Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) will install a giant screen in a room located in the submarine base and which can accommodate up to 2,000 people, indicates France Blue Loire Ocean. “It’s not an endorsement of the fact that the World Cup is taking place in Qatar”warns PS Mayor David Samzun. “We can say that Saint-Nazaire is against the current, but I want us to be able to share these moments of community, of popular gathering. I think we really need it.” A decision “incomprehensible” that “regret” the local branch of the League for Human Rights (LDH) in a press release shared on its Facebook page. She mentions “human rights in the background” and recalls that Qatar is “a country with a more than questionable political regime”.
With the current winter weather, the city of Châteauroux (Indre) will also install a giant screen indoors, in its exhibition hall which will be able to accommodate up to 3,000 people, indicates France Bleu Berry. The town hall had promised this installation in the event of qualification of the French team for the last four. The cities of La Roche-sur-Yon (Vendée) or Dijon (Côte-d’Or) are also part of these cities which had already indicated that they would broadcast the matches from a possible semi-final. In both cases, the meeting place remains to be defined.
Fear of overflows in Saint-Raphaël
The city of Saint-Raphaël (Var) is planning to install a giant screen in the event of Didier Deschamps’ men qualifying for the final. Mayor LR Frédéric Masquelier explains to Agence Radio France and France Blue Provence that he will not install any for the France-Morocco semi-final “For safety reasons”. As president of the Estérel Côte d’Azur conurbation, he suspended subsidies for a district of Fréjus where incidents took place last week after Morocco qualified against Spain.
Two months before the start of the World Cup in Qatar, Strasbourg had been the first city to announce a boycott of the competition. Many cities like Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Lille, Nancy, Rennes, Marseille then joined the movement and explained that they would not install a fan zone or giant screen to follow the competition.