Paris Olympics 2024: Why France’s racially diverse society has united to boo Argentina | Paris Olympics 2024 News – Times of India

PARIS: There’s an intriguing geopolitical tussle playing out here, threatening to blow up into an embarrassing diplomatic row. And football, racism and societal change are at the heart of it. On the eve of the Olympics, Argentina are discovering that they will not be winning any friendship prizes here this fortnight. It’s ironic since locals here have been implored to shed their famous snootiness and inculcate an idea of ‘accueuillant’, or being welcoming for the Games.Argentina, in fact, will find it impossible to find any friends in the French capital, or any of the cities where Javier Mascherano’s team is playing the football competition.
On Thursday, at the Stade de France, Argentina’s Rugby 7s team — the Pumas — was roundly booed during the national anthem. It left Pumas captain Gaston Revol surprised. “I wasn’t ready or prepared for that reception,” Revol revealed.

The crowd at the Stade de France was venting their ire at the Pumas, but it was essentially directed at the Albiceleste — the team of Messi, Angel di Maria and one Enzo Fernandez, current world champions after beating Mbappe and France a year and half ago. As of a fortnight ago, Argentina were Copa America champions too.

After the Copa America triumph, Fernandez — Chelsea’s 55-million euro star — sang a song on the bus with racist overtones, mocking the composition of Les Bleus, the French national team, for its predominantly African-origin players, as being “from Angola,” or having a “Nigerian mother” or “a Cameroonian father”. Playing his football in multi-ethnic Europe, working in a city as diverse as London, the tonedeafness displayed by the 23-yearold was baffling. Fernandez has since apologized but the French – with an estimated three million blacks or nearly 5% of the country’s population – are not letting it pass. The episode has turned into a diplomatic row.
Javier Milei, Argentina’s populist right of centre president, is attending Friday’s Paris opening ceremony and meeting president Macron to clear the air on the issue. Many are seeing this outrage within the prism of the difference in entitlement, perspectives and historical rivalries of the global north and south. It has not helped that Milei’s deputy, vice-president Victoria Villarruel, came out in support of Fernandez, pointing to France’s colonial history.

In the aftermath of the video, older videos emerged showing the French team mocking Messi after winning the 2018 World Cup. In another video, marquee French footballers Antoine Griezmann — a self-confessed Uruguayan by spirit — and Ousmane Dembele, of Mauritanian-Senegalese and Malian descent, were seen mocking the Japanese language as “ching chong” during a 2019 Barcelona pre-season tour.
The duo apologized. The issue found a swift burial online. Maybe Villarruel was right in bringing up these double standards when she said, “We never had colonies or second-class citizens. We never imposed our way of life on anyone.”
But ask any Frenchman in Paris today and he will nod in approval at his country’s new-found fervour. Once notoriously indifferent towards any attack on their complex social fabric, regular Frenchmen are now speaking out – in one voice.
There is a sense of euphoria – and hope — in France. Last month’s election results emphatically rejected the extreme right-wing ideology of Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party and daughter of the French right-wing provocateur, Jean-Marie. But France opted instead for what many hope will be a more inclusive society, one that is largely free of Islamophobia and is not hostile to immigrants.
“A left or right-wing government will not really improve my lot. Perhaps the right even have better ideas, but I voted for the left because Le Penn had a programme to exclude us immigrants,” 24-yearold Thomas Mehdi Labrar, a third generation French of Moroccan descent, said.
France is brimming with African diaspora — Les Bleus is an active symbol of that, and Kylian Mbappe its shining icon. In fact, Mbappe, himself of mixed Cameroonian ethnicity, and other African-origin players often used the European football championship in Germany to remind people back home to vote and defeat extremists.
Many said France’s indifferent form throughout the tournament and their limp ouster at the hands of eventual winners Spain was because their minds were occupied with the elections and the outcome.
Statistics show that north African immigrants make up nearly 10% of France’s population – in Qatar in 2022, the nation was divided down the middle in whether to support France or Morocco in the WC semis. An estimated 1.15 million immigrants from Morocco and Tunisia make up France’s population — the largest ethnic group.
This collective outrage following Fernandez’s chants is a manifestation of a growing sense of solidarity and unity in a multiethnic society that has come together to reject the far right. Till it lasts, Argentina can seek solace in the idea that their being booed is giving a complex society hope.