Rama Yade: "Sports Is A Springboard For Human Rights"

Corse-Matin interviews Rama Yade, the outspoken and controversial French Secretary of State for Sport and moderate-conservative (interview in French). As regular Booker Rising readers know, until this past summer Ms. Yade had been the country's human rights minister for two years:

You are France's favorite political personality. Is it because you're beautiful or because you're a rebel? I'm not well positioned to comment on polls. One must ask the pollsters and the people who are polled. However, what matters more is work, work and work...I would be judged on that.

The French appear to like your outspokenness. And the more trouble that accumulates for you within the [center-right party] UMP, the more they love you. Your opinion? I think that everyone who engages in politics does so on their convictions. The key is to fulfill one's mission. One must take it seriously and have a consistent environment that stresses it. We try to do the best for the ministry entrusted to us.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's polls are in decline, while yours continue to climb. What's your relationship [which has been testy in the past year]? Two weeks ago, the President told me that I was doing a good job with sports. I stick to what he said. I try to do my best and I know it's close to his heart because he once dreamed of being sports minister. So this is the best anointing that can be given to me and I appreciate the importance of this honor.

You will be in Monaco for the [Peace and Sport Association] meeting. What do you expect? Through sport, we can achieve social bonds. I created a sports fund for the international protection of children, and I will work against the wild recruitment, the trafficking of young athletes which occurs in some countries. With peace and sport, there will be lots of convergence. Sports have a real role to play in peace, and serving as a humanist ideal. It is a unique forum! Sports is a springboard for human rights, which makes the link between my ministerial duties.

But alas! There is also violence in sport. Yes, it is a global phenomenon and as an extremely popular medium, it isn't immune to certain excesses of society. I was very shocked by the incidents that occurred in Marseille. As for the hooligans, they can not hear the speech of repression. They are not even sports fans and have nothing to do there. For others, it must be a dialogue and I just launched a Congress of national fan associations. Let clubs complain even if it is not always easy, and stadium bans are respected.

What do you think of the debate on national identity? I don't see why there is controversy. The government simply has a debate. Each gives his vision. For me, being French is to have a sense of belonging to a nation and adhering to certain constituent values of the republic such as a concern for democracy, secularism, love of country...[Former French general and President Charles] De Gaulle said one must balance France's grandeur and global freedom. There is generosity in this formula."

The Socialist Party has eyes for you now [note: the party recently "jokingly" offered Ms. Yade "asylum" if she would join the Socialist Party, when so many of her center-right partymates were attacking her outspokenness on various French political issues in the national media] Don't joke with someone about something so serious! I've got a commitment to which I am faithful. One doesn't play like that!"

As you saw, someone said we could do much better than the United States. By one day electing as president someone who is a woman, black and married to a Jew. What are you thinking? My whole life is ahead of me and I won't make the mistake of dreaming such things. I don't even know what I'll do next week. So it's not on my agenda! As for my husband, he isn't religious and his mother is Catholic. And then, the road is longer in France than in the United States! It is part of an optical lab to be scarred around before reaching one's political end!