I'm a senior at the American University of Paris. I am passionate about soccer, but enjoy tennis and basketball as well. I'm bilingual in English and French and am always happy to talk soccer with whoever wants to listen! When the French soccer team won the World Cup at home in 1998 it had a huge social impact. Everyone, regardless of race, religion or economic class felt French. Now as riots rage in the suburbs of France’s major cities, it’s obvious that the sense of togetherness has worn off. But was it ever really there?
When France won the World Cup in 1998 on their home soil it wasn’t just a sporting achievement, it was a social phenomenon. Here you had the country’s very first World Cup brought home by a generation of players that were hailed as the representation of multicultural France.
The orchestra leader Zinedine Zidane was born in Marseille to Algerian parents and Lillian Thuram, the defender who scored twice in the World Cup semi final, grew up in the banlieu (the equivalent of America’s inner city slums) after moving to France from the Antilles. The French National Team, then and now is full of players with diverse origins many of whom grew up in these impoverished suburbs.
This team, they told us, was the ultimate proof that integration had been a success. There was nothing, they said, that prevented the children of immigrants succeeding in French society. "Black, Blanc, Beur" was the slogan. It means "Black, White, Arab."
It seemed at the time, that they were right. Every French citizen could look at the World Cup winning side and find an image that they related to. Zidane is probably the best example. French people love Zinedine Zidane. His genius transcends racial and economic barriers. There is no denying though that the Algerian community, especially in his native Marseille, feels a particular attachment to him.
That enclave of immigrants and their children and grandchildren idolize him. When Zizou, as he’s affectionately known, retired from international football, they felt isolated. When he came back to help France qualify for next year’s World Cup, he brought that demographic with him. They watch the French national team because of Zidane and they feel French because of Zidane.
There is no doubt that sports has the power to bring people together, soccer probably more so than any other sport in the world, but to use Zidane (or any other French player) as a poster for successful integration of immigrant communities is a gross manipulation of the man and his talent.
It’s putting a face that people like, respect and admire on something that does not truly exist. Make no mistake, integration in France if it ever truly happened was most definitely not the resounding success people would have you believe.
Those same young people that look up to Zidane and other French soccer players, are the ones burning cars in suburbs of France’s major cities as we speak. Their dream is to be like Zidane but their every day reality is much harsher. They live in slums, they are undereducated and/or unemployed and the future looks bleak.
The world in their eyes is dead set against them. They see a government that does more to oppress or ignore them than to help them. They see a society that treats them as outsiders and then rejects them for not being "French." They are being deprived of any sense of identity. Can you blame them for being angry?
The riots raging right now in France have been a long time coming. The banlieus where the violence is occurring are the product of a period where France opened its doors to immigrants seeking work and built low cost housing for them.
It was a period of relative prosperity in France and the standard of living for the immigrants was better than what they were leaving behind. The majority of them were of North African origin and their ties with France go back to the days of hexagonal colonialism.
That history is part of the problem. France has had a hard time coming to terms with the certain aspects of its past ranging from World War Two to the violent separation from its colonial possessions in North Africa and Indochina. All that baggage continues to weigh heavily on the current social dynamic.
The result is that as time has gone, as the standard of living in the banlieus has degenerated, the theory of integration has turned into the practice of exclusion. These immigrant communities have become a scapegoat for society’s inability to digest its past.
Now, distanced from the culture of their parents and grandparents but also from the culture of the country where they were born and have lived all their lives, these young people are rebelling. French society has created this phenomenon and French society will have to find a solution.
The success of the French national team in 1998 and of players like Zidane and Thuram, while not to be taken as a political slogan for integration, is proof that something positive can come out of these marginalized communities. The power of these young people, if harnessed constructively can make France stronger and truer still to its ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.
That’s more than any World Cup could ever be worth.