SPORT 1913 - 2013

tion of working hours he achieves a reduction of 40 per cent on train tickets for workers and their families and 600 000 people since sum- mer 1936 are qualified for this benefit. The number of youth hostels doubles in the same year. The whole population enjoys these ben- efits, the democratisation of sport is on the rise. Nevertheless the working class is very conservative concerning family and gender matters. The woman and the daughter are pri- mordially housewives or workers. To this adds the predominance of the Catholic Church and the bourgeois values dictated by the legisla- tion. The major struggle and innovation, basi- cally for women workers, is to defy the hesita- tions of society concerning social or sport matters. Very soon the workers sport consigns responsibilities to women. Nicolas Kssis (2008) shows the example of Lise London. Heroine of the International Brigades and fa- mous for her work in the Resistance, she is ar- rested in Ravensbrück and Buchenwald. She also incarnates together with her husband, Artur, the struggle against Stalinism immor- talised by the book and the film “The confes- sion”. Born as Elizabeth Ricol, she participates in the organisation of the “Spartakiades” in Lyon in 1932 for the “Fédération du Sport Tra- vailliste” (its fusion with the “Union Sportive Générale du Travail” – USGT- creates the FSGT in 1936). In Venissieux she pleads for the de- mocratisation of physical training for young working women. On this occasion she meets her first husband, Auguste Delaune, member

tion of women. Their life has undeniably changed, they more often work outside their home, they are becoming financially indepen- dent, they are studying longer and therefore leisure and sport activities are more frequent. Women’s emancipation causes a change of perspectives. The right to practice is no more a concern but now the different disciplines to be selected have to be increased and adapted, as the same happened with the different pro- fessional occupations. The various types of sport are cultural developments, very often sexually differentiated. The work and com- mitment of the FSGT in adapting the variety of sports similar to the competitions organ- ised in the Maurice Baquet stadiums in the 1960s contributes to break down the barriers of limited access for licence holders at that time. The challenge is to adapt the rules so that sport can be practised by everybody. “Ev- ery sport for everybody” is still the slogan used by the FSGT. Until 1966, women were not accepted in judo as this sport was considered entirely masculine. In France it was on the initiative of the FSGT that the conquest of the tatami was initiated. Therefore, when the “Fédération Française de Judo et Disciplines Associées” (FFJDA) opened its doors to women in the 1980s, the first international women competi- tors all came from FSGT clubs. Louis Rouillon, trainer of the “Fédération francaise d’Athlétisme” (FFA) but also trainer and activ- ist for the FSGT, has always evaluated sport in terms of emancipation and equality. As he

of the Resistance and the first secretary gen- eral of the FSGT after its creation.

Vichy Regime: Form Mothers in Good Shape During the occupation, the Vichy regime con- tributes also to the development and govern- mental organisation of sport, physical activi- ties and training for all, but not in the same focus. The aim in the context of a national revolution was to shape strong humans and therefore mothers in good conceiving and healthy condition. The poster for the “Fête na- tionale de la sportive” organised by Marie- Thérèse Eyquem for July 5 th , 1942 (she was sports director in Jean Borotra’s Ministry for General Education and Sport) illustrates this idea with the picture of a woman seen from two different angles of view. In the front she is in sportswear, in the rear she is a mother holding her child in her arms. Marie-Thérèse Eyquem, president of the “Mouvement démocratique féminin” (MDF), national sec- retary of the French Socialist party, president of the “Fédération internationale d’éducation physique et sportive féminine” (FIEPSF), sym- bol of the catholic sport; for her, politics, sport and feminism are key aspects in her life and she never stops fighting for them. (Castan Vi- cente 2009)

1945-1975: The Right to Practice … Every Kind of Sport

The glorious thirty years from 1945 to 1975 considerably contributed to the democratisa- tion of sport and even more to the emancipa-

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