Although Israel National News boasts both writers and readers who are avid sports fans, we do not have a sports section and only delve into sports stories when there is a broader dimension to them. This is the case in the story of Laurent Blanc, the French football (soccer) coach, who is under fire for "racial slurs" and favoring a quota in French football training academies of no more than 30% players with dual nationality. These are in almost all cases Blacks and Arabs.
In 1998 France won the World Cup at home in Paris with a football team described as black, blanc and beure (black, white and Arab). The site of the victorious team singing the Marseillaise appeared to give credit to the French model of integration. What was essentially the same team went on to win the European cup two years later.
Since then, the French national side has fallen on bad times. The nadir was reached in the 2010 World Cup competition in South Africa. First France barely qualified and needed an illegal hand goal against Ireland, called the "hand of frog" by Irish fans, to get in. After lackluster play and a demonstration against their own coach, the French team exited ingloriously after the first round. In the postmortem,
it was noticed that the team could not sing the Marseillaise and there was murmuring that the spirit of hooliganism that had manifested itself in riots and car torchings in the troubled French suburbs had migrated to the football team - the only distinction being that these hooligans were pampered millionaires.
To revive French football glory, Laurent Blanc from the fabled 1998 team, was selected to be the new coach after he had been quite successful as coach of Bordeaux. The new coach felt that team spirit was lacking in the World Cup fiasco, as well as pride in being part of the national team. He insisted that players learn how to sing the national anthem. He also wanted players to display respect for French culture and history as criteria for admission to football academies.
This would not have gotten him into trouble, but he complained that the French academies placed too much emphasis on strength and speed, qualities where blacks are superior, over intelligence and imaginatio. This created the impression that he was stereotyping blacks as less intelligent. He also pointed to the success of the Spanish championship team which does not have any black players. Blanc sought a quota for players with dual nationality because it made no sense to invest in players who would then play for Algeria, Senegal or other national teams.
When the story broke the veterans of the 1998 team divided with some attacking their former teammate and others defending him noting that he had taken a black player and made him captain of the French national team.
French politicians have already begun enter the debate. The French Socialist party is the mandating that sports minister Chantal Jouanno shed light on the affair. France is currently sensitive to such a debate due to the rise of the anti-immigrant National Front. Nicholas Sarkozy is attempting to steal the thunder of the front by the anti burqa law and clamping down on the European Union's open borders to prevent third world immigration. He has called for identity debates within his party.
French football is merely a mirror of the general malaise.