Film on Zidane Reveals: "French Government Ordered Cancellation of Doping Tests"

Marie-George Buffet, France's former Minister of Sports, admitted that her office suspended surprise doping tests for Zinedine Zidane and his teammates ahead of the 1998 World Cup. However, in 2013, Buffet herself swore before a Senate committee to the exact opposite:

"We never gave any such instruction."

This glaring contradiction was revealed in the documentary film "Zidane, the Making of a Legend," which aired on the French channel BFMTV. The former Minister of Sports in the Jospin government, who served from 1997 to 2002, was forced to revisit the storm that arose following a surprise test conducted on French national team players during a training camp in Tignes in 1997.

At the time, the players, coach Aimé Jacquet, and the French Football Federation harshly criticized the tests, claiming they interfered with the team's preparations, even though all urine tests returned negative. Alain Garnier, the former doctor sent to Tignes on behalf of the Ministry of Sports, said in the film that the minister gave him the instruction verbally:

"I was told not to disturb the team again until the World Cup. In other words, no more surprise tests."

Now, Buffet herself has confirmed this version. "After the World Cup, we resumed the fight against doping," she admitted, adding that "in all likelihood, the instruction was passed to us at the government level." According to Garnier, the instruction came directly from Matignon, the seat of the French Prime Minister's office. Buffet, who claimed at the time that she was under "all kinds of pressure," has thus finally collapsed the official version she defended for more than 15 years, including before state institutions.