Roselyne Bachelot, the former French minister of Sports sentenced for having accused in 2016 the Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal doping, will be the new Minister of Culture of the Government of Emmanuel Macron.
Bachelot, who between 2007 and 2010 was the head of Sports under President Nicolas Sarkozy, was sentenced to pay 10,000 euros to Nadal, after the twelve-time winner of Roland Garros filed a complaint against her.
In March 2016, in a television program, Bachelot was asked about the positive of the Russian Maria Sharapova and accused the tennis world of not being transparent in the fight against doping, at the same time that she was convinced that Nadal was doping.
“They don't reveal the positive controls. We just found out curiously that a player has an injury that keeps him months away from the slopes. We know more or less that Rafael's famous injury Nadal who kept him seven months without competition (between 2012 and 2013) it was surely due to a positive control “, said the new minister of French Culture.
Those words, which created a great scandal in the country, earned him a conviction in the Correctional Court a year later. Nadal, who at that time had ten Roland Garros titles in his showcases, said he felt “fatigued” by doping suspicions launched against him in France and decided to go to court. Once the sentence was handed down, the tennis player assured that he would dedicate the money to social purposes.
Bachelot has a long ministerial career. With Jacques Chirac she dealt with Ecology between 2002 and 2004, and with Sarkozy she held the portfolios of Health and Sports between 2007 and 2010, when she became Minister of Solidarity and Cohesion of the Territory until the end of her term in 2012.
Since then, far from the front line, although very present on television sets, rejoins a Government to deal with the portfolio of Culture, while the responsibilities of Sports will continue in the hands of former swimmer Roxana Maracineanu.