For a better world

Apparently sport is not the right arena in which to express concern for human rights according to the French national Olympic committee (CNOSF). Its president, Henri Sérandour, has banned this country's athletes from wearing a badge with the slogan "Pour un monde meilleur" (For a better world) during this summer's games in Beijing.

Sérandour, told L'Equipe television that such a move would contravene the Olympic charter, which he said, "Precluded any tangible demonstration of any kind during (Olympic) competition and the opening and closing ceremonies."

It's a sad reversal of a statement made by the same man just a couple of weeks ago after French athletes decided to adopt the badge, which depicts the slogan above the five Olympic rings.

Back then Sérandour said he would fight for the sentiment for a "better world" not only within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but also "as a message for the 2008 games and beyond."

But he now seems to have caved in to pressure and changed his opinion to fall in line with that of the IOC, which has assured Chinese authorities that although athletes are free to express their personal views in public, they won't be allowed to under the aegis of the games.

While Sérandour's decision might be binding on French athletes, it's far from receiving universal support from others who have spoken out about the need to separate sport from politics.

France's junior sports minister, and former national rugby coach, Bernard Laporte, called the move regrettable and said he didn't find the badge at all aggressive in its declaration.

"It doesn't attack China and on the contrary it borrows from the declared objectives of the IOC itself,' he said in a radio interview.

The badge was a compromise as originally the organisation representing France's Olympic athletes had proposed wearing a green ribbon in support of human rights. But that was considered too overtly "political" by the CNOSF and scrapped.

Some might see an interesting difference of priorities at play here. The preamble to the United Nations charter guarantees the right to freedom of expression, as does European and French law.

But a private money-making organisation such as the IOC has a different set of rules and principles, in which the logos of sports equipment manufacturers who help finance the games clearly carry more weight than an expression of support for human rights even in the mildest of forms.

So on the one hand while the Chinese will be allowed to pursue a largely propaganda-inspired ceremony having greatly ignored international wishes for reopening a dialogue with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and improving their human rights records, freedom of expression won't be extended to individual athletes.

Sérandour's decision means that French athletes will in effect be forced to toe the IOC line that rejects political, religious or racial propaganda.

France's part, and in particular that of its sportsmen and women, in this whole masquerade is probably far from over even if the country's political leaders have been more than diffident in deciding whether to attend the opening ceremony.

Let's just hope that the gagging of athletes doesn't extend to any French gold medal winners who choose to belt out the national anthem, which includes a line to rise against tyranny.