On Friday, Yade, called for action to be taken in the case of the amateur football club FC Chooz in eastern France, which had refused to renew the contract of a gay player, Yoann Lemaire.
Footballer Yoann Lemaire, "sacked for being gay". Screenshot Yagg interviewA blatant example as far as many, including apparently the minister, that sports authorities in France are failing in their obligation to fight homophobia.
Lemaire had come out to team mates in 2009 after the club and the local mayor had signed the "Charter against homophobia".
The player said in an interview with the LGBT site Yagg that after coming out he had received the support of both his team mates and club officials.
"The season went really well (for me)," he said.
"There weren't really any problems."
But events took a less pleasant turn when new players were recruited, and one in particular insulted him during training sessions and made national headlines after making homophobic comments directed at Lemaire during an interview in front of the television cameras.
The player was reprimanded, Lemaire received his excuses on behalf of the club and the story seemed to "disappear".
Until last week that is, when Lemaire discovered that his contract was not being renewed because, in the words of a letter he received from the club's president Frédéric Coquet, it was a way of "avoiding further incidents."
Effectively, as many saw it, Lemaire had been sacked because the club and the local league had been unwilling or unable to deal with homophobia in sport and football in particular.
Yade didn't mince her words on Friday as she criticised the club and the local league.
"This kind of thing cannot be accepted," she told the news agency Agence France Presse.
"Even if the local football federation is simply a bystander in the affair, it's remains responsible for what's happening at the grass roots of the sport," she added.
"If it's proven that this is a case of homophobia, then it must be punished."
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