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DAVID CAMERON

Hollande jabs Brits over ‘red carpet’ welcome

French president François Hollande has thanked the British for giving French athletes a red carpet welcome, in a thinly-veiled reference to a jibe from British Prime Minister David Cameron last month.

Asked about France’s top performance, Hollande said he thanked the British for giving French athletes a "red carpet" welcome to win medals.

"We’ll put the French medals in the European pot, so that the British will enjoy being European," he added, although he hastily admitted that the games were not over yet.

Hollande appeared to be responding indirectly to comments by David Cameron in June in which he said that he would "roll out the red carpet" to French firms that moved to Britain Hollande's Socialist government's tax rises.  

In other comments on Monday, the President praised the London's hosting of the games. The British capital beat Paris for the chance to be host in a closely fought contest:

"I would like to congratulate David Cameron and his government for what they have achieved," he said.

On Tuesday morning, France ranked third in the overall medals count, with three golds. The UK team trailed in 20th position.

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OLYMPICS

Germany’s Interior Minister rules out ‘unthinkable’ bid to host 2036 Olympics

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has ruled out a bid to host the 2036 Olympics, saying in an interview that it would be "unthinkable" on the 100th anniversary of the Nazi-era 1936 Games in Berlin.

Germany's Interior Minister rules out 'unthinkable' bid to host 2036 Olympics
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer. Photo: DPA

Held three years before the outbreak of the Second World War, the 1936 games are widely remembered as a propaganda coup for Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

In March this year, Berlin's state minister of the interior Andreas Geisel faced heavy criticism after he appeared to suggest Berlin should bid for the 2036 Olympics in an interview with Tagesspiegel newspaper.

However, the 69-year-old Seehofer, whose ministry also holds the sports portfolio, said Germany could not be seen to celebrate the centenary of the Nazi-era Berlin Olympics.

“It would be unthinkable. If we did that, we would bring on an unspeakable international discussion and harm the Olympic idea,” he told Frankfurt-based newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) in an interview published on Monday.

“How would people see it across the world? Germany celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the Nazi Olympics? That cannot happen.”

Aside from concerns over associations with the Nazi regime, there is scant public support for hosting the Olympics in Germany.

READ ALSO: Interior Ministry begs for more cash after 'forgetting' landmark reunification celebration

Public referendums, in 2015 and 2013, rejected proposed Olympic bids to host the summer games in Hamburg and a winter edition in Munich respectively.

Seehofer said that he was generally in favour of a German Olympic bid, but voiced concern that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had become too focused on commercial success.

“In the eyes of the public, the IOC has wandered too far from its original idea and into commercialism,” he told the FAZ.

He called on the IOC to “de-commercialise” and said he had “a lot of sympathy” for the German Athletes' Commission, which last year demanded that the IOC share a quarter of its profits with Olympic participants.

By Kit Holden

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