World Cup patriotism may be a glorious distraction, but it can't disguise the racism in French society
It is no coincidence that, 20 years on from France’s 1998 World Cup win, ethnic minorities still have very little chance of advancing in a rigidly exclusive country
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Your support makes all the difference.As England football fans know only too well, there is very little to match the outpouring of patriotic fever that accompanies a successful World Cup run. Beyond occasional bouts of excessive drunkenness and minor hooliganism, it is generally a supremely joyful and positive phenomenon.
In France, the national squad is invariably made up of players from ethnic and religious minorities and tends to deliver a warm feeling of unity once every two years, whether during a European Championship or as at present, a World Cup. Crowds jump around in front of oversized TV screens, strangers hug and whoever you are, you can join in the celebrations.
Last weekend, millions cheered on Les Bleus – France’s national team – to a win over Argentina in Russia. Tricolours waved at gatherings across the land, as the team once more became a symbol of a dynamic, egalitarian country in which those from immigrant descent can be loved and respected. The sense of pride and expectation will certainly be the same today, when France play Uruguay for a place in the World Cup semifinals.
Stars include Kylian Mbappé, the son of an Algerian mother and Cameroonian father, along with Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kanté, Blaise Matuidi and Benjamin Mendy. All are from African families and were born and brought up on the rundown estates around Paris – an area said to be the greatest pool of footballing talent on the globe after the Sao Paulo favelas. They are feted as heroes, who seemingly personify the very best of French values.
Beyond the handful of multimillionaire footballers, the reality for men and women of the same origin is very different, however. Following the Argentina win, the non-football related violence which broke out in Breil in the western city of Nantes on Tuesday (around the time that England was beating Colombia to reach the World Cup quarterfinals) was far more indicative of the actual state of modern France as it pertains to the young and the disadvantaged.
In summary, police shot dead Aboubakar Fofana, a 22-year-old Frenchman from a Guinean background, after trying to arrest him in Breil. The killing prompted thousands to take to the streets, throwing Molotov cocktails, burning cars and buildings and attacking the forces sent out to quell the fire. Disturbances have gone on all week.
Apart from signalling the start of yet another summer of urban disorder, Fofana’s death says everything about what really happens to a disturbingly high number of people with African and Arab roots who have grown up in the no-hope warrens that surround major cities.
Men like Pogba – a tall, powerfully built, black Muslim who, as Fofana, has Guinean parents – are just the kind who are routinely demonised. Politicians and media commentators whip up hatred against the so-called “banlieusards”, shorthand for out-of-towners, who are given next to no opportunity of joining the mainstream and the decent housing and jobs that go with it.
Instead they view them as potential criminals, up to and including terrorists.
It is no coincidence that, 20 years on from France’s 1998 World Cup win, they still have very little chance of advancing in a rigidly exclusive society. Youth unemployment is as prevalent as discrimination around the Paris suburbs.
It was very noticeable that Marine Le Pen, the Front National candidate who came runner-up to Emmanuel Macron in last year’s presidential elections, did not “do football” during her venomous campaign. Her party now calls itself the National Rally (NR), but continues to be determinedly xenophobic.
The NR’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agenda, and the millions of French people who support it, is certainly worth considering in the context of France’s latest sporting adventure. It was Le Pen’s father, the convicted racist, Holocaust denier and FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who spoke out against the “rainbow team” that won the World Cup two decades ago. Noting the number of footballers from “foreign countries” – for which read the descendants of immigrants from former colonies – he questioned their suitability to represent France.
The NR is not the only party that wants to keep perceived outsiders in their place, either. The opposition Republicans – the latest name for France’s Gaullist conservatives – remain as reactionary as ever, while Macron himself has frequently displayed a bigoted streak. At a G20 press conference in Hamburg last summer he spoke of the “civilisational” problems caused by African mothers having too many children. “Seven or eight children per woman” were Macron’s exact words, as he rehearsed a cliché favoured by those who object to the large immigrant families in their midst.
International football might be considered a very minor antidote to such racist sentiment. To view it as anything more than a fleeting distraction from the unpleasant reality that can underpin French patriotism is well wide of the mark.