After England, this evening it’s the turn of the other big favorite to win the Euro 2024 final. France takes the field against Austria and arrives at the challenge in a particular climate for the country, with legislative elections just around the corner (30 June and 7 July). In fact, there was more talk about politics than football, even in the press conference. He was the first to do so Ousmane Dembele: “The siren has sounded: I tell all French people to go and vote.” Then Marcus Thuram urged people to vote so that Marie Le Pen’s Rassemblement National does not win. And the most representative player also spoke: Kylian Mbappé. The champion was quite explicit in front of the microphones: “I want to address the new generations in particular. Ours is a generation that can make a difference, today the extremists are at the gates of power. Today we have the possibility to choose what future we want for our country. I make an appeal to all citizens to go and vote, because they must understand the gravity of the situation. I hope that my voice has the greatest possible weight. The country must identify itself with the values of diversity, tolerance, and respect.”
Although the French Football Federation as an institution must maintain a line of neutrality, it has not managed to prevent its players from expressing their ideas: Philippe Diallo had in fact urged Mbappé himself to avoid talking about politics, being ignored. Even the technical commissioner, Didier Deschamps, did not distance himself from the words of his players: “They are citizens and they can say what they think is right. Football can unite everyone and color blue of France represents solidarity, community and diversity”.
Deschamps was the captain of the 1998 world champion national team. And even then the political issue was controversial with Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front and Marine’s father, who repeated several times how shameful it was for the national team to field players of blood not French. “They don’t even know the Marseillaise” he thundered at the time, also ignoring how the blue even in previous decades they were often made up of children or grandchildren of foreigners. The victory of that multi-ethnic national team, with a brace in the final by Algerian Zidane, was a very hard blow for Le Pen, who also badly lost the 2002 elections in favor of Jacques Chirac.
A controversy that was also repeated during the World Cup in Germany in 2006again Jean-Marie Le Pen spoke of a French national team with “Too many black players”, triggering the reaction of Lilian Thuram, Marcus’ father: “If you see Le Pen tell him that the France players feel French and love this shirt and the nation. Long live France, but not the one Le Pen wants.”