Former Spanish PM Rajoy Sparks Controversy with Comments on France's Football Team

Former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has sparked controversy after saying that France's football team plays "without Frenchmen."

Rajoy made the comment in his latest World Cup column for El Debate, which he has been writing after each Spain match at the tournament.

In his column, titled ‘"Hoy llegó el desquite," or "today was the day for revenge" in English, Rajoy went over Spain's 2-1 quarterfinal victory over Belgium and looked ahead to La Roja's semifinal matchup against Didier Deschamps' France side on Tuesday night at 9 pm CET.

It was in that context that the former conservative prime minister, who headed the Spanish government between 2011 and 2018, made the remark.

After acknowledging that France had been world champions twice and won every match at this year's tournament, Rajoy said they have a "top-tier squad", before adding "but without Frenchmen". The comment was an apparent reference to the fact that many players in the French squad either have immigrant backgrounds or hail from former French colonies.

And yet, of the 26 players called up by Deschamps for the tournament, only three were born outside France: Michael Olise, who was born in London to a British-Nigerian father and French-Algerian mother; Marcus Thuram, who was born in Parma as his father, French football legend Lilian Thuram, was then playing in Italy; and Brice Samba, who was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Widespread condemnation

Speaking on Spanish TV, ruling left-wing PSOE Party MEP José Cepeda called Rajoy's comments "racist and xenophobic" and said it was "shameful" that he had spoken in such a way.

In France, Rajoy's remarks have also triggered widespread reactions on social media, with political figures weighing in.

France's Minister Delegate for Equality between Women and Men and for the Fight against Discriminations Aurore Bergé posted on social media site X that "the repeated racist outbursts are intolerable. It’s time they stop and that sports return to being sports: a space where we are judged on our talent and no other criterion."

The national secretary of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, called for Rajoy to be “condemned” in a post on X, comparing his words to recent comments made by a Paraguayan politician about France's star striker Kylian Mbappé. Those comments led the Paris prosecutor’s office to open an investigation for “aggravated public insult" after a complaint was lodged with Paris’s National Center for Combating Online Hate.

"They just can’t help but spout vile racism in a bid to rile up our wonderful French team," he wrote.

The Élysée did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Euronews.

French football and immigration

Rajoy's comments form part of a long-running discussion over French football and immigration, dating back to France's first World Cup triumph in 1998, when Zinedine Zidane, Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desailly, and Patrick Vieira helped lead Les Bleus to victory.

The team featured numerous players who hailed from immigrant backgrounds or who had relatives from former French colonies, and was celebrated as a symbol of French multiculturalism.

Not everyone saw it that way, however.

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front argued at the time that the side did not truly represent France and that it was “artificial" to bring in foreign-born players and present them as the French national team.

Those arguments, widely condemned at the time as racist, have resurfaced repeatedly in French politics, often tied to wider debates about immigration and national identity.

The latest flashpoint comes as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is due to visit Paris on Tuesday for the annual 14 July Bastille Day holiday, the same day France and Spain face off in their World Cup semifinal in Dallas.