Laurent Blanc may have escaped censure from the French Government and the French Football Federation this week, but French football’s reputation is still hanging by a thread following the row which has erupted following revelations by Mediapart that senior football officials in the country wanted to limit the number of African and north African players in their academies.
The French Football Federation report into the revelations cleared Blanc and the organisation reaffirmed their faith in their national team coach, but the damage doesn’t look like receding anytime soon.
As soon as the reports cleared Blanc, the Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires de France preparing to issue a formal complaint against both the government and French Football Federation for their respective roles in the affair. They believe the findings are a cover up, with Blanc excused all too easily.
Initially, the quota plan was devised out of a desire to prevent France from training youngsters who then went on to play for other countries; so in essence funding the development of rival nations.
Francois Blaquart, the most vocal proponent of the plan, has been suspended from his role as National Technical Director of the French Football Federation, the position held by Gerard Houllier until last September when he left to join Aston Villa. His position is still under threat, with the Federation’s President Fernand Duchaussoy refusing to publicly back Blaquart. And in a row like this, some form of ceremonial resignation or sacking may be what is needed to placate those angry at what they perceive to be a whitewash.
Blanc’s particular role in the affair demonstrates the complexity of the issue at stake. He has been defended by a number of notable individuals, including Aimé Jacquet, the 1998 World Cup winning coach, and other members of that team, such as Zinedine Zidane, Bixente Lizarazu and Cristophe Dugarry.
And Chantal Jouanno, the Sports Minister, has cleared him in the government’s inquiry into the issue and insisted that there is no suggestion that there was any racist intention on his part. This is backed up by Alou Diarra, the midfielder of African origin whom Blanc appointed captain upon his arrival in the role just under a year ago. So Blanc is not a racist. The transcripts do not reveal any overt racism on the part of those involved, but the complexity of the situation is that while there does not appear to be a racist intention from the officials involved, the implication is self-evidently discriminatory. The message is, if you’re not 100 per cent French, then you’re welcome to play for us, just as long as there aren’t too many of you. Though Blanc has been defended and proclaimed, probably rightly, ‘not a racist’ to the world, this doesn’t make the plan he seemed to concur with any less discriminatory.
Ultimately, what constitutes being “French” is what the issue comes down to. France, perhaps more than any other country, is extremely culturally protective. The French refuse to define people by race or ethnicity. They will go to·famed lengths to protect their language. They even have a European Union Protected Destination of Origin directive preventing the use of the term Champagne on any form of sparkling wine originating anywhere outside the French region by the same name.
And so this quota row seems to be an offshoot of that mentality, the French protecting their football identity. Revealingly, the transcript of the conversations held at the French Football Federation detail discussion of the stereotypical qualities of black players; strength, power, but supposedly a lack of technique (Thierry Henry, anyone? Pélé? Eusebio?)
By contrast, there were suggestions that smaller white players with good technique but a lack of physical stature may find themselves filtered out of the youth system as a result of coming up short (both literally and figuratively) against these players. And what is the result of this? A loss of the identity of the French national team. And this is an area of particular sensitivity given the performance of the national side in last summer’s World Cup, where they scored just one goals and finished below hosts South Africa before exiting at the group stage.
Worst of all, the team went on strike and refused to train after forward Nicolas Anelka was sent home after an altercation with manager Raymond Domenech.
In the aftermath of the failure, and in light of the behaviour of their squad, philosopher Alain Finkielkraut (philosophers’ views are highly sought across the channel) said: “we now have proof that the French team is not a team at all, but a gang of hooligans that knows only the morals of the mafia.”
One report even accused the French squad of consisting of “guys with chickpeas in their heads instead of a brain.”
Much blame was placed on immigrants and a loss of identity, a debate provoked earlier in the year by President Nicolas Sarkozy. One junior minister, Fadela Amara, noted this when she said: “Everyone condemns the lower-class neighborhoods. People doubt that those of immigrant backgrounds are capable of respecting the nation.”
The numerous insults and criticisms were thrown at a team consisting in large part of players from immigrant backgrounds, who were seen as unpatriotic and undeserving of performing in such a privileged role for the national side. Five game bans were handed out to the perpetrators of the strike, Patrice Evra and Franck Ribery. As a punishment, the entire World Cup squad was banned from playing by Blanc in his first game in charge, a friendly against Norway. Oh, and Nicolas Anelka was banned for 18 games, in practise retiring him from international football.
Criticism was levelled at numerous players who didn’t sing “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem.·Senegalese born Evra was criticised personally for this (as well as his part as one of the leaders of the strike.) On his appointment as national team coach, Blanc said that his team should start to sing their anthem with pride.
In this context, it is maybe easier to understand how France came to decide, at one of the lowest points in its team’s football history, that they needed to be a bit more ‘French.’ And rightly or wrongly, this appears to have led to the idea that somehow limiting foreign born players in its academies would help to solve this ‘problem.’
Counter productive? Yes. So many key French players have come from immigrant backgrounds. Henry, Thuram, Karembeu, Zidane, Vieira – the list is endless, perhaps longer than that of any other country. But these players were the heart of the French team which won the World Cup in 1998, a team hailed for reflecting the full, culturally diverse spectrum of French society.
It is inconceivable that those officials who devised the quota concept have not thought this through. But in a very French way, they may have just decided that they were more concerned about the identity of the team. After all, this is a country which, rather than embrace liberal capitalism, has a law in place, the Royer Act of 1973, which prevents town centres being overrun by multinational chain stores, protecting local, independent shops. The French just don’t go in for success for success’s sake. Identity is just as important, and if the price of victory is a loss of this intangible quality, they’d rather not pay (which incidentally, goes some way to understanding Arsene Wenger’s football philosophy.)
France is not a racist country, its authorities have reacted swiftly and expediently, and the quota storm will eventually die down. But it should be seen for what it is; a symptom of French cultural identity being diluted in what is an increasingly globalised world; a world in which national identity is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It will just take them a bit longer to come to terms with this than the rest of us.
David Gold is a reporter for insideworldfootball