July 19 – France’s victory in the World Cup may have “given the country optimism”, according to President Emmanuel Macron, but elsewhere it has sparked an unsavoury and unnecessary atmosphere of racism.
With Italy having failed even to make the finals, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini made a point of hailing his own country’s 4x400m junior relay team as “today’s real champions” for winning the under-20s athletics world cup.
Corriere della Serra commented that France were “a team full of African champions mixed with very good white players”. If that wasn’t discrimination per se, it was far more explicit in Poland where human rights groups say there has been a notable rise in racist abuse and behaviour since the election of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government in 2015.
The Warsaw-based Centre for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behaviour has filed over 30 complaints over racist social media posts.
“Social media users began to send us links to hate speech posts right after the World Cup final on Sunday,” the group’s head, Konrad Dilkowski, told AFP. “Then we began to monitor football-related internet sites in Poland. We found racist and hate speech posts under each news item. The comments insult French players because of the colour of their skin … and using extremist racist epithets considered criminal in Poland,”
Of France’s 23-man squad, 16 players have African heritage but only three were not born in France. Samuel Umtiti and Steve Mandanda moved to France aged two from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, respectively, and Thomas Lemar’s family migrated to France from French overseas territory Guadeloupe when he was young. All the players came through the French youth systems.
In the USA, South African-born comedian Trevor Noah has been accused of going one step too far on his popular Daily Show.
“Africa won the World Cup,” said Noah said in a segment on the late-night television programme.
“I get it, they have to say it’s the French team. But look at those guys. You don’t get that tan by hanging out in the south of France my friends.
“Basically, if you don’t understand, France is Africans’ backup team. Once Senegal and Nigeria got knocked out, that’s who we root for.”
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