France - Les Bleus and the Republic: Diversity, Difference and Discrimination

The chapter focuses primarily on the French men’s football team and explores how it has featured in contrasting political discourses during a period of a just over a quarter century. After mapping out how French political culture shapes discussions of sport and discrimination, it will discuss how reactions to the 1998 World Cup victory often sought to present the triumph as a symbol of diversity and tolerance and a rebuke to people who had previously engaged in divisive and discriminatory rhetoric. However, it will also show that some public figures in France have also portrayed football as a symbol of what is wrong about contemporary French society and placed it located it within highly discriminatory discourses. These approaches point towards a degree of both political opportunism and often tensions between theories and reality where France’s Republican political model is concerned. This chapter will close by discussing key challenges facing footballing authorities in France in order to ensure that discrimination is tackled effectively, and also by suggesting that French political traditions do not always help the sport to be as inclusive as it could be.