Astrid Guyart is officially appointed head of the French National Olympic Sports Committee. Deputy Secretary General since the election of Brigitte Henriques at the head of the CNOSF in June 2021, the ex-foilmaker has also been part for a few days of a quartet of leaders (with Jean-Pierre Siutat, Michel Callot and Sébastien Poirier) formed to support Brigitte Henriques, who needs “a period of rest”, after months of conflict with her former secretary general, according to Michel Callot, the president of the cycling federation.
Since the announcement of the eviction of Didier Séminet, also targeted since by a complaint for “psychological violence” by Brigitte Henriques, the CNOSF has been going through a zone of strong turbulence. An internal war is shaking the house and polarizing around two camps, with an anti-Henriques front crystallized around the former secretary general, former president Denis Masseglia and embodied by the president of the judo federation Stéphane Nomis.
Calm tensions down
This board of directors, in which Didier Séminet, still a member, participated, was expected in order to measure the level of tension reigning at the CNOSF. According to Brigitte Henriques and her quartet, the meeting was “peaceful”, they assured at a press conference. The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had precisely wished a few days ago that this “important” moment be devoted to appeasement within the body.
“It was quite tense at first, quite heavy even. And then the dialogue was restored and we even discussed current affairs, sports at school, energy sobriety. And it felt good”, confirmed a board member to AFP.
The president tried to outline the operation to come with her quartet, a completely new team, specifying that she was “not on sick leave”, that she remained president, but saying to herself “exhausted by the fifteen months of “unheard of fierceness and violence” that she considers to have suffered. “I will only come back to be at 100% of my physical and psychological abilities,” she said.
“I’m not gonna crack”
Hearing Wednesday in the Senate, the Minister of Sports felt that Brigitte Henriques should “take the time to recover all her strength”. The former vice-president of the FFF admitted having almost cracked “in February-March”, adding in the process: “I held on, and I will not crack. I will remain president until the end of my mandate. .”
A message no doubt sent to the camp of the ‘slingers’ who are to meet Thursday, October 13 at the judo federation, a meeting to which no member of the new management team has a priori planned to go.
About this rebellious meeting, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra estimated in front of the parliamentarians that this debate was “on the initiative of one or two people”, adding: “I usually say that the future of the CNOSF is in the delivery of the Games and in the need to come together to focus on the work that needs to be done for the Games, in particular the France de la Villette club”.