Amélie Oudéa-Castéra says more has to be done for French sports facilities ©Getty Images

French Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra has stressed President Emmanuel Macron's plan to create and renovate 5,000 local sports facilities will not be enough, saying structuring equipment improvements have to be made too.

This promise was made in October 2021 and the initiative started this year, with most improvements going towards multisport areas, 3x3 basketball courts and skate parks.

The Sports Minister says this has to be extended to stadiums, gymnasiums and swimming pools.

"We will also need to work on structuring equipment," said Oudéa-Castéra during her 2023 draft budget presentation to the National Assembly, according to Le Monde.

"This is the meaning of the work today of the National Sports Agency (ANS) to properly analyse the places and the sports which will have to be the subject of these priority investments."

Paris 2024 will have 95 per cent of its facilities either already existing or as temporary structures ©Getty Images
Paris 2024 will have 95 per cent of its facilities either already existing or as temporary structures ©Getty Images

ANS was created in 2019 to coordinate public sports policies, and aims to correct social and territorial inequalities through access to sports equipment and facilities.

Member of the French National Assembly Belkhir Belhaddad led a Parliamentary mission that said 40 per cent of 272,000 facilities across the country owned by local authorities date from before 1985, with 61 per cent being over 25 years old.

A third of rural municipalities have no equipment either, while underprivileged areas of the city are under-equipped too.

Paris 2024 has committed to 95 per cent of its facilities being either existing or temporary.