The captain of Les Bleus, Kylian Mbappé, and the striker Marcus Thuram, son of the great Lilian, invite people to vote against the extremists. The French don’t care about the opinions of intellos and footballos. But the fact that talented kids throw stones into the pigeon loft, without caring about the consequences, is a healthy scandal
Two sane people, two boys, in the land of madmen. The minister who carried out the pension reform with Macron last year, Aurélien Rousseau is running with the Popular Front which wants to repeal his reform immediately. The rising star of socialist reformism, Raphaël Glucksmann is mobilizing alongside those who wanted to beat him a few weeks ago shouting “Zionists out of the peace demonstration”, among the flags of Hamas, those he had defined as “enemies of democracy”. Bardella and Le Pen sing melody to gain credibility and say they are bearers of repudiation of all extremism in the name of tranquility and order, Italy magistra vitae, but the economic world fears a bankrupt program and in Europe there is suspicion of the advent of a subtly inspired foreign and defense policy by the Russian invader of Ukraine. They take with them some crumbs of Gaullism, they who are historically the Algérie française and De Gaulle their fathers and uncles wanted to assassinate him.
In all this, the captain of Les Bleus, Kylian Mbappé, and the striker Marcus Thuram, son of the great Lilian, invite people to vote against the extremes, an eye on the party of Marine and Jordan, considered unpresentable, an eye on Mélenchon, leader of the Front, who would like to break through electorally in the Islamic immigration network and receives a nice rebuke with a built-in slap from two champions of diversity. It will be said that they should have limited themselves to talking about football. It will be said that the French don’t care about the opinions of intellos and footballos. It will be said that they are rich and famous, they are incapable of grasping the anger of France d’en bas like all those in the hateful group of those who have made it. It will be said that anti-racism as a correctist ideology, even when directed against the Rassemblement national which distinguishes between real Frenchmen and fake Frenchmen, generally a little coloured, is the annoying dogmatics of those who have made it and detest their companions in misery of yesterday. Poverty, and there is some, agreed, but in a crazy and very desperate country where we talk about the sixth week of paid holidays and the ultra-indebted and ultra-dirigiste state behaves like a kind of structural Superbonus, with the promise of extreme policies to delve deeper into the discussion if they have the necessary demagogic consensus.
The reformists or centrists of the round ball will have no influence, or at least nothing decisive, it is clear. But the fact that young people of undisputed talent throw the stone into the pigeon loft is a healthy scandal, perhaps they risk the booing of politicized and angry Citoyenne fans, as well as the embarrassment of the national Football Federation, and appeals of that kind in a press conference close to the European Championships deserve to be considered courageous and unconventional. Symbolism is part of political and civil struggles, it nourishes them and justifies them in the shortest way, if we want, as demonstrated by the kneelings, which lent themselves to misunderstandings but were beautiful and very classic as a source of inspiration. Mbappé then has a mischievous and sly smile, Malin, which justifies the foot and the tackle and the Garrincha feint beyond the playful dimension. His appeal is not Macronist, let alone, but Macronists of all shades can only subscribe to it. For them who are on the eve of an abrupt downgrading and who even among the intellos risk relative isolation, the indirect support of two champions in their twenties, footballos capable of saying “no” without worrying too much about the consequences, is more than a support, it is an unexpected bonanza.
