France’s rhapsody in blue

In Brazil, another generation of France’s mix of ‘black, blanc, beur’ (black, white, Arab) will try to unite the country through football, writes Eoin O’Callaghan.

When the French players celebrated their World Cup triumph on the streets of Paris in the summer of 1998, an elderly woman approached Thierry Henry and thanked him for giving the country its greatest moment since the Liberation. France, however briefly, had been unified by the success of a football team.

On the morning of the final, Le Monde commented on the ‘bonheur precaire’ (fragile happiness) of the occasion and how the divisive topic of French multiculturalism was, at last, being looked upon as something positive. In the midst of other social concerns like rising unemployment and racially-motivated violence, the World Cup odyssey provided some respite for the French public. After the 3-0 win over Brazil, they danced on the streets. On the Champs Élysées, the face of Zinedine Zidane, the team’s hero, was beamed across l’Arc de Triomphe against a backdrop of the tricolor. Zidane, a child of Algerian immigrants, become France’s unlikely poster-boy.