With the approach of the Euro, the National Gathering chooses the ground of the controversy

In 1996, Jean-Marie Le Pen attacked in full competition. That year, the co-founder of the National Front (FN) took advantage of the Euro football to criticize the France team and its players from various origins. He reproached them for not all singing The Marseillaise before matches and to represent an assembly “Artificial”.

A new European Nations Championship is approaching. And with him, new attacks from the far right about the Blues, now double world champions. Less than a month before Euro 2021 (June 11-July 11), several executives of the National Rally (RN) took the French Football Federation (FFF) to task.

First, since the evening of May 18, to regret the return of Karim Benzema to the French team. Born in Lyon to parents of Algerian origin, the player would, according to Senator (RN) Stéphane Ravier, on Franceinfo, only a “French on paper”. At 33, the center-forward of Real Madrid has however already proclaimed his attachment to the Blues, without feeling the need to sing the national anthem. In addition, he has established in France the company managing its image rights, according to a Mediapart survey ; and not in tax havens, unlike some Real Madrid teammates.

The center forward comes out of a long sporting sideline, for a still ongoing affair. Indicted since November 2015, he will appear before the Versailles Criminal Court in October for “Complicity in attempted blackmail”, against his former teammate Mathieu Valbuena.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also Euro 2021: the return of Karim Benzema, a primarily sporting affair for Didier Deschamps

“A scum part” of France

Himself a football fan, Emmanuel Macron supported the national coach, Didier Deschamps: “I think he made the right choices” Including, therefore, that of appealing to Karim Benzema, for “His quality of player” and “The maturity he has acquired”, always according to the President of the Republic.

From May 20, two days after the announcement of the twenty-six Blues selected for the Euro, new controversy. On May 19, the French Football Federation posted a song to encourage them, Write my name in blue. A song composed, on this occasion, by rapper Youssoupha. Not really to the taste of Jordan Bardella, one of the vice-presidents of the RN, again on Franceinfo: “We gave in to a scum part of France. ” The head of the Ile-de-France regional list in June hijacks an interview given by Karim Benzema, just before Euro 2016, to the Spanish daily Marca. The striker then believed that Didier Deschamps had “Yielded to pressure from a racist part of France” by putting it aside.

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