"Racisme crasseux", "haine banalisée"... des politiques français répondent à l'Espagnol Rajoy sur les Bleus
Several French ministers and party leaders on Sunday denounced the "blatant racism" and "hatred" conveyed by an opinion piece by former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which refers to a French football team "without French players".
At the heart of the controversy is an opinion piece published in the media outlet El Debate, in which the former head of the Spanish government (People's Party, conservative) analyzes the French team, a few days before a clash against La Roja in the semi-final of the World Cup (Tuesday).
He believes that France "also has a very high-level workforce" however "without French personnel".
"The French team consists only of French people. France is not an ethnic nation, it has no skin color or religion. It is a political nation united around the republican motto. Much to the chagrin of the racist right," Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure (on X) sharply retorted.
"Yesterday a senator from Paraguay, now the former Prime Minister of Spain: they cannot help but express blatant racism to try to anger our beautiful French team," added his counterpart from the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel.
Members of the French government also reacted.
"With each victory of the Blues, the same obsessions and racist insults resurface. These are not 'slips'. It is a methodical and banalized hatred of France and what it is," rebuked Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou (Horizons), inviting the French Football Federation to initiate "legal proceedings".
Her colleague Aurore Bergé (Fight against discrimination, Renaissance) criticized "repeated racist incidents": "it is time for them to stop and for sport to become sport again: a place where one is judged on one's talent and on no other criteria".
Also interviewed on BFMTV, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez stated that while this declaration "is accurate", it "is absolutely unacceptable".
The statement from the former Spanish leader, whose government fell in 2018 amid charges of illegal financing of his party, also drew reactions in Spain.
The Spanish Socialist government's transport minister, Oscar Puente, called him a "post-Francoist idiot", who, according to him, had never been "moderate".
The French embassy in Madrid also reacted on social media: "All the players on the French team are French. Of the 26 players, 23 were born in France. The three who were born abroad are also French."
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