Football & Racism

Jean-Marie Le Pen seems to have gone out of steam. He tries to gain support in France by attacking immigrants as if France’s social, political and economic ills will end by evicting the immigrants and replacing them with “pure” European race. By calling for a French football team which doesn’t include foreigners, he wants to politicise football. He can also call for “ethnic cleansing” in the French army, security, enterprises and so on as they include foreigners of African and Arab origins.

His racist attitude was echoed on a BBC programme about Zidane, when an immigrant said when the French team wins they call the players French. When they lose they call them blacks and Algerians. For Jean-Marie Le Pen, when the French err it is human. When the immigrants err, they should be wiped out of the French society.
But Jean-Marie Le Pen got the best answer to his attitude when the French team beat Brazil, qualifying for the semi final. The popular response to his comment was from the huge crowds that went out celebrating the victory. It is a message that the French in great majority take their society as multicultural and multiracial for granted . If some immigrants cause trouble in France, it is because of the racial attitudes they suffer from, especially when it comes to employment.

In conclusion, Monsieur Jean-Marie Le Pen has no correct reading of his society because his political vision is blurred by his unjustified racism. I invite him to listen to a song by Sting- addressing Presidents Gorbatchev and Reagan in which he says, “I believe in biology. I don’t believe in ideology.”