Amélie Oudéa-Castéra and the Olympics, between tensions with Hidalgo and taste for risk – L’Express

There are some fads that are more telling than others. That of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra makes many of her colleagues smile around the Council of Ministers table on Wednesday morning at the Elysée. When she speaks, the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games cites, one by one, the name and exact job title of all her government comrades with whom she participated in an event, set up a project, visited an installation. “And sometimes… it’s long,” one of them muses. “It makes you look like a good student in the first row, but in reality, it’s nice for us.”

“AOC”, as she is nicknamed in the corridors of ministries, is perhaps that. First, unfailing meticulousness. A stiffness, even a psychorigidity, some would say, which got the better of part of his office in the first weeks of his installation. The former junior tennis champion, who subsequently went through Science Po Paris and ENA – in the same promotion as Emmanuel Macron -, has the slow speech and saccharine tone of those who do not want to leave anything to chance. ‘an impulse. Not even a syllable. “Before her speeches, she is hyperconcentrated, not a look, not a smile, she wants her speech to be precise. But when she speaks, it’s pleasant, and it’s straight,” relates Stéphane Troussel, the president PS of Seine-Saint-Denis, with which it is in perpetual contact in view of the Olympic Games. But “AOC”, to listen to many of those involved in the organization of these Games, is also, despite what yellow ball sport might suggest, a keen sense of collectiveness. Able to set other ministers in motion, to be “in project mode”, slips his Transport colleague Clément Beaune: “She is a great technician coupled with an athlete who knows the ecosystem. No one else “has this double hat, which clearly made her the woman for the situation”, he continues.

Fond of sporting metaphors, the one who saw Safet Susic, the Brazilians Raí, Ronaldinho, Neymar and the eight-time Ballon d’Or Lionel Messi wear the jersey of the capital, the city of his birth, considers herself “No. 10” of the Olympic management team: hardworking playmaker, “capable of managing at 360 degrees and being on the front line in front of the first lights”. A captain, in short. However, another player, with experience, is eyeing the armband that she thought she had had around her biceps for a long time. On May 20, 2022, from her office at Paris town hall, Anne Hidalgo must face the facts – which is not always her cup of tea: there is a new sheriff in town. A new Paris 2024 sales representative, and he resides on avenue de France, in the far south-east of Paris.

Here is a 45-year-old woman, who has never held office or put her name on a ballot, coming to her land. By what right ? Amélie Oudéa-Castéra was not in Peru in September 2017, when the French delegation, proudly led by the city councilor, saw Paris being designated host city. Amélie Oudéa-Castéra does not have, is not, “the spirit of Lima”. “Somewhere, she blames me for it,” said the Minister of Sports in a low voice. “She is tense, she thinks that I took up a little too much space, no doubt… With her, it’s the opposite of something fluid. She said to me one day, in front of everyone: ‘I remind you that you are nominated, and that I am elected'” she concludes, shrugging her shoulders ostentatiously. Initially, the exchanges were refrigerated; now they are almost non-existent. “Between Hidalgo and her, there is no bandwidth, says someone close to the mayor. She is already completely saturated by discussions, meetings with Gérald Darmanin. There is no room for anyone else in government. Not for Oudéa-Castéra.” We have the same passion, but clearly not the same jersey.

An “invirable” minister

Anne Hidalgo looks at Amélie Oudéa-Castéra as a civil servant who should have remained one. The political animals smell each other: she does not find the prize list at home, one would say from the Ministry of Sports, which she respects. That of Pécresse, Darmanin, Troussel, Castex. In short, that of the elected and, above all, the re-elected. And then the Paris 2024 machine was turning before the re-election of Emmanuel Macron: what the hell did we need to add a cog in the middle of this mechanism? “Very honestly, there was no need for a minister for the Olympic Games, they say in the entourage of the mayor of Paris. In any case, not from 2022. What is the point of appointing a minister ultimately, who comes to disrupt an entire organization already in place? She is looked at by the other actors like a dog in a bowling game. It’s not so much her fault, she’s more a victim of the system. ” In the corridors of Paris town hall, we like to think of her as “the Minister of the Games Budget”. Nothing more. To believe that Amélie Oudéa-Castéra is only a figurehead who, from time to time, takes a look at Excel tables and reports to the President of the Republic. “I do not agree with this vision of things, reacts strongly Stéphane Troussel, also a socialist, also re-elected many times, but undoubtedly a bit more fair play. She has found her place, she is an interlocutor with whom we work very well and who listens to Seine-Saint-Denis. She has acquired a taste for politics, she takes risks, she takes blows, but she has also learned to give them.”

Just look at the way in which she, barely a month after her appointment and dropped in the open by Gérald Darmanin, managed the affair of the Champions League final at the Stade de France. How, in 2023, she accompanied, even supported, the resignation of two monsters of French sport: Bernard Laporte, ex-president of the French Rugby Federation, convicted of corruption, and Noël Le Graët, ex-president of the French Federation football, targeted by an investigation for “moral harassment” and “sexual harassment”. “During the Le Graët affair, she was a bit in the president’s sights,” slips a minister. She did “a Rima” before Rima (Abdul-Malak) and Depardieu’s Legion of Honor, and the president already found that there was a form of moralizing position that he doesn’t like very much…” Which did not prevent the Head of State from leaving his Minister of Sports on the front line, exposed, but in a position to make increase his notoriety and his political capital. She assures him: “On this matter, the president placed absolute trust in me.” More recently, his blood boiled when Anne Hidalgo, again, poured her heart out in November by saying that public transport would not be “ready” for the Games. On several occasions, the Minister of the Olympic Games demonstrated that she also knew how to do judo to respond to the mayor of Paris. “The worst we can do is communicate Care Bears, say that everything is fine in the best of all possible worlds,” she admits. “No, it’s hard, and it’s going to be hard. But it’s unacceptable to already condemn the teams who are working by saying that we will not be ready.”

While a next major reshuffle seems more and more plausible, few ministers can sleep soundly. Except perhaps Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. In the past, sports ministers may have appeared as interchangeable appendages; this time it’s different. Six months before the Olympic Games, without having committed any major fault, “AOC” is “perfectly invincible, she would have to dance on the table of the Council of Ministers for her to be removed”, joked one of his colleagues barely three weeks ago, the day after the vote on the immigration law. Is she aware of it? Without a doubt. Is it still worth fighting for? Of course. The former tennis player cautiously steps up to the plate: “Yes, of course I want to stay. On a subject like the Olympics, the cost of entry is such to know the files in depth, to be technically up to the point that it is It’s hard to get to the very end.” A word to the wise… Basically, which competitor would be happy to go on the bench before the end of the match?