Zidane, Mbappe star in multi-cultural French team, but race tensions remain

Some commentators have discussed the 2018 success of Les Bleus as a return to the joys of "black, blanc, beur" multicultural national celebration, acceptance and celebration of ethnic diversity.

Fifa World Cup 2018 : The French football team has won the 2018 World Cup, 20 years after it triumphed on home soil in 1998. “Les Bleus”, as they’re called, are back in the nation’s good books, celebrated for their excellent performance in this year’s tournament, right through the 4-2 win over Croatia in the final. Out of the limelight and the glare of success in Russia 2018, however, a question continues to dog French football – the role of race and class in the selection of national players.

On the surface, this may seem strange with the attention given to the multicultural harmony of the 1998 World Cup-winning team. The straight-talking former captain of the French national team, Zinedine Zidane, recently said of his country’s 1998 win: "It was not about religion, the colour of your skin, we didn’t care about that, we were just together and enjoyed the moment."

This echoed the sentiment of the times, that a multicultural team of united “black, blanc, beur” (black, white or Arab) players had united under the cause of the French national team to lift the World Cup for the first time. Triumph, on the football field, demonstrated that integration had been successful in France and anyone could reach the top of French society.

Zidane, the star of France’s 1998 World Cup-winning team, was born to Berber Algerian parents. He grew up in Marseille’s infamous “La Castellane” estate, seen as one of the toughest estates in one of France’s toughest cities. Two decades later, Kylian Mbappé – a 19-year-old of Cameroonian and Algerian heritage – who grew up in the Bondy suburbs of Paris, is the star of the French team.

Some commentators have discussed the 2018 success of Les Bleus as a return to the joys of “black, blanc, beur” multicultural national celebration, acceptance and celebration of ethnic diversity. Yet others have been critical of the way politics, integration and football have been mixed together again.

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