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How Kylian Mbappé strikes a blow at the politics of the far-right
For the Les Bleus that boasts of an embarrassing wealth of talent, this World Cup was supposed to be the tournament for Antoine Griezmann or Paul Pogba.
Instead, Kylian Mbappé literally burst onto the scene with a rip-roaring solo run through the heart of Argentinian defence. The brace that followed – becoming the first teenager to score twice in a World Cup match since Pele in 1958 – was as significant as beautiful.
Little darts of pace, like bursts of passion, and his monk-like smile has already turned him into the favourite poster-boy of social media this year. From outrageously edited viral videos – in one of which a wriggling and rolling Neymar has replaced the ball during Mbappé’s now-famous solo run – to a tuneless Eric Cantona singing ‘Don’t cry 4-3 Argentina!’, people cannot stop talking about France’s youngest teenage sensation. Everything is meme-worthy when you have a photogenic teenager who has got the right moves.
The origins of Kylian Mbappé
Mbappé was born to an Algerian mother and Cameroonian father after France won the World Cup in 1998. The victory also threw up questions of political identity and occasioned a sense of deep political introspection. As World Cup winner Lilian Thuram had said, “The World Cup victory was a defining moment for questioning what we are, as French people. The French team was composed of players of different colours and different religions; can we also accept this in our society, outside of sports?”
Kylian Mbappé literally burst onto the scene with a rip-roaring solo run through the heart of Argentinian defence. (Image: MOTD) This is also true of the France squad in this year’s World Cup. Of the fourteen players who faced Peru in the group stages this year, nine were born in Africa or the French Caribbean or to parents who emigrated from those places. Samuel Umtiti was born in Cameroon, Raphaël Varane’s father is from Martinique, Paul Pogba’s parents are from Guinea, Corentin Tolisso’s father is from Togo, N’Golo Kanté’s parents are from Mali, Ousmane Dembélé’s parents are from Mauritania, Blaise Matuidi’s father is from Angola, Nabil Fekir’s parents are from Algeria, Steven Nzonzi’s parents are from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mbappé’s father is from Cameroon.
Right-wing political ideologues have always viewed with suspicion any effort to use football as a tool to foster post-racial cultural unity. And more so in a country like France where politicians have always pursued a rabid strain of anti-immigrant rhetoric questioning the national identity of “foreign faces”.
Kylian Mbappé bends time and space, it said. He also bends bigotry and puts Marine Le Pen’s politics of xenophobia to shame.
After France won the 1998 World Cup, the way the team built intercommunity relationships was widely praised. ‘Black-blanc-beur’ is what the team was called back then, with Zinedine Zidane being the only beur – a French colloquialism for people of North African origin. Zidane was born to Algerian parents in La Castellane, a working-class suburb outside Marseille which is also known as a ‘quartier difficile’ or a sensitive zone.
Zidane’s journey from La Castellane -- filled with first-and second-generation immigrants from Algeria and Morocco –- to Madrid, being projected across the façade of the Arc de Triomphe, is a remarkable tale of post-racial national integrity. Led by Zidane, the French team’s moment of glory in 1998 ushered in a moment of great political significance. Some would even go on to call it the coming of a ‘second enlightenment’.
But much water has flowed down the Seine since then.
Led by Zidane, the French team’s moment of glory in 1998 ushered in a moment of great political significance. (Image: FIFA) In 2002, the French team failed to win a single game and got knocked out of the World Cup in the group stages. That was also the first year in French history when a politician from the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, reached the second round of the presidential election. Le Pen led a monumental onslaught against the fostering of unity occasioned by the World Cup win in 1998. In 2006, he said that France “cannot recognise itself in the national side…maybe the coach exaggerated the proportion of players of colour and should have been a bit more careful”.
More such racial bigotry began to trickle in from other quarters. Philosopher and public intellectual Alain Finkielkraut said, “People say that everyone admires the French team, because it’s black-white-Arab. Actually, these days the team is black-black-black, which makes it the laughing stock of Europe.” Many of these French footballers have been slammed for not singing La Marseillaise, the national anthem that includes references to “impure blood” watering the country’s fields.
And the rhetoric of far-right bigotry has been stronger than ever now with the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter Marine Le Pen. Emmanuel Macron with his war cry of ‘En Marche!’ may have upstaged Marine in the presidential election last year, but the latter’s hatred-filled anti-immigrant campaign that wanted to bring forth a ‘Frexit’ or a French exit from the Eurozone, has not been forgotten.
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Zidane himself voiced his opinions when he said last year: “It is the same as in 2002, that I am far away from those ideas, from the National Front, and that we have to avoid it as much as we can.”
Of course, Marine Le Pen is a part of a larger global political narrative that has in recent years decisively shifted in favour of the far-right. Protectionism, closed borders, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments mark this global trend.
This is not a good time to be an immigrant.
A report emerged last month that the Trump administration was holding young immigrant babies in “tender age” detention facilities after forcibly removing them from their parents at the US southern border. Hundreds of Syrian refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean after being refused asylum in European countries. Here in Asia, India continues to wage a war against Rohingya refugees, completely ignoring the humanitarian crisis that forced them to migrate en-masse.
At such a time, the current French football team dares us to dream that the punctured hope of the coming of ‘second enlightenment’ might be resurrected again. It aspires us to imagine of another post-racial utopia in the country after a year in which the politics of the far right suffered a crushing electoral defeat.
The rhetoric of far-right bigotry has been stronger than ever now with the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter Marine Le Pen. (Image: Politico) And Mbappé with his twinkling toes and dancing feet is at the vanguard of such political aspirations. Mbappé comes from the working class background of banlieues which has been associated with social stigma and crime. The poorest of the poor communities from these banlieues now find in Mbappé’s rise a license to dream. In February, Mbappé was invited to the Élysée Palace to discuss with Macron and the ex-footballer-turned-president of Liberia, George Weah, how best to develop football in Africa. Clearly, the 19-year-old in a way embodies the very antithesis of Marine Le Pen’s politics, which is why he has endeared himself to Macron already.
Mbappé is also at the vanguard of the French attack now, leading the line and often bursting forward beyond Oliver Giroud who plays as the conventional striker. The New Yorker wrote that he is like a falcon who weaves magic as he glides through hyperspace.
Kylian Mbappé bends time and space, it said. He also bends bigotry and puts Marine Le Pen’s politics of xenophobia to shame.
