The French the government has been criticized for signing a deal with Doha to ensure Cup securitydispatching 220 experts including special forces, anti-drone troops, demining units and explosives search teams.
Opposition MPs reacted angrily to the deal, with some calling air-conditioned stadiums an “ecological scandal”and others say employed workers for the construction of the infrastructure of the World Cup, mostly foreign, have been treated “almost like slaves”.
Asked about the outcry on French radio Karl Oliviera deputy from President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, called the criticism “confuses“, and unexpectedly brought the famous Eiffel Tower into the debate. “If you want to go there, then you have to remember that over 300 people died building the Eiffel Tower“, he told the France Info channel early Friday.
Within hours, however, he backtracked, admitting Twitter that the “300 people I mentioned (370 exactly) did not die during the construction of the Eiffel Tower“. According to the operators of the Eiffel Tower, there was “no injuries or deaths“during the two years, two months and five days of its construction between 1887 and 1889.
Eiffel Tower experts estimate that approximately 370 people have died since the construction of the Towermainly due to suicides and accidents to the famous building. “It was a bad example“, Olive acknowledged. “I’m sorry.”
But the apology did little to stem contempt on his remarks, especially from the left. “It is shameful“, fumed Thomas Gatesa deputy from the far-left France Insoumise party, claiming that Olive had “defended Qatar with fake numbers and a stunning comparison with the Eiffel Tower.” Portes added: “This World Cup is built on a pile of corpses“.
In front of international criticism for its treatment of workers, Doha promised that improved conditions for foreign workers would be a “key inheritanceof the World Cup. In addition to the treatment of foreign hires in multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects, Qatar is also under scrutiny for its record on women’s rights and the LGBT+ community. The efforts to improve conditions will be extended to hospitality and other sectors that also depend on foreign workers, the organizing committee’s chief spokeswoman, Fatma Al-Nuaimi, told AFP in May.
