2023-07-14 19:50:34
Teenagers participating in “La grande rédac” during the International Journalism Festival of Couthures-sur-Garonne (Lot-et-Garonne) interview the Italian writer Roberto Saviano, guest of honor, July 14, 2023.
Questioning our relationship to the media and information by stepping aside. This is the program of the International Journalism Festival, organized by the group Le Monde (The world, Courrier internationalthe HuffPost, Telerama et The life) et The Obswhich opened on Friday July 14 and will run until July 16 in the village of Couthures-sur-Garonne (Lot-et-Garonne). “Has rugby lost its soul? » : the question has been chosen, “deliberately provocative”, to stimulate debate between information professionals and festival-goers, confides Clément Martel, journalist at the Mondewho moderated the debates alongside Richard Sénéjoux, Telerama.
Read also: International Journalism Festival: the meeting place for news enthusiasts
Two months before the Rugby World Cup, which will take place in France from September 8 to October 28, what could be more logical than to warm up quietly while reflecting on a sport that has long stood out from football, but which is entered in turn into a logic of spectacle. While some matches will take place in Toulouse and Bordeaux, the two cities closest to Couthures, oval ball sport is one of the seven themes that structure the festival program, alongside information fatigue, the place of public service in the media landscape, the climate emergency, the war in Ukraine, or even the psychological consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first round table of the afternoon on rugby, “The Top 14 or nothing”opened the ball, to ask the question of the galloping professionalization of this sport coupled with a phenomenon of metropolisation which the small villages bear the brunt of.
Regional rugby and big city rugby
“There are two types of rugby at the moment: the one that makes you dream, that of the money, that of the Top 14. But there is also poor rugby in small towns which is even more impoverished by the biggest clubs. »thinks former player and coach Henry Broncan. “There are amateur clubs that continue to disappear”, he warns. Gilles Bertrandias, president of the club of the city of Marmande, confirms that “mainland rugby has taken precedence over that of medium-sized cities”. “All our stars have passed through our small villages, that’s where they emerged, we need everyone to respect each other to work together to promote our sport”adds the president of the club, created in 1911 and crowned champion of France during the 1984-1985 season.
So how do small clubs survive? “We pool and bring together the small municipalities of the Marmandais basin, this allows us to have a real development path for young people”explains Mr. Bertrandias, who judges that the senior teams and rugby schools must be kept village by village in order to keep a “steeple rugby”.
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