French Sports Minister Bernard Laporte calls on media to boycott Beijing
Olympic opening ceremony.

PARIS, FRANCE (APRIL 15, 2008)  REUTERS -

French Sports Minister Bernard Laporte said on Tuesday (April 15)
that he was very disappointed that athletes have been told not to wear a badge
reading "For a Better World" at the opening ceremony of the Beijing
Olympics in August.
    The badge, bearing the Olympic rings, was worn by French athletes
during the incident-ridden French leg of the torch relay on in Paris on April
7.
    "I feel it's regrettable and it's a shame, just like many French
people, because I was there during the launch of the new badge by David
Douillet. It was not an aggressive badge as the athletes said it was not
aggressive because it said 'for a better world' which is a sentence included
in the Olympic charter and also the Olympic rings were on it, which is the
symbol of the Olympic Games. So we were depressed but the IOC based its
decision on the charter which is very clear and neat so they are allowed to
say you can't wear such a badge,"  Laporte told Reuters Television
outside the National Assembly in Paris.
    Laporte went further to say the media should boycott the opening
ceremony of the Olympics.
    "To the athletes, who perform the sports, I hope they try to pass
a message to engage themselves.  We can't take them hostage that would be
useless. The message they tried to send was heard by the whole world. They
committed themselves and as I said I would like you (the media) to engage
yourselves too, that television, newspapers all the media -  I would like
everyone to boycott the opening ceremony. It could be a good example," he
said.
    Double Olympic judo champion Douillet, the joint president of the CNOSF
athletes' commission, had said the French athletes were also planning to wear
it at the opening ceremony.
    But CNOSF (Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français) president
Henri Serandour insisted the badge should not be worn during the Games.