The France roster shows that the World Cup is a victory for diversity

MOSCOW – For the French national motto freedom, equality, fraternity, you can probably go ahead and add diversity, at least as far as his football team is concerned.

Because in a period of increasing xenophobia Reactions on both sides of the Atlantic, France reached Sunday the World Cup final against Croatia with one of the most diverse teams and multi-ethnic teams from all national teams.

Sixteen of the 23 team players from families who recently immigrated to France from countries such as Zaire, Martinique, Cameroon, Morocco, Angola, Congo or the United States. ;Algeria. Striker Antoine Griezmann, top scorer of the team, is half-German and half-Portuguese. The defender Samuel Umtiti, author of the goal that sent France to the final, was born in Cameroon. The young prodigy Kylian Mbappe is part of the Cameroonian, partly Algerian.

Even captain Hugo Lloris, the goalkeeper, traces his recent roots in Spain. And France will need all these contributions against a Croatian team whose players, torn apart by a bloody civil war, refused to lose this World Cup, winning their three playoff games in extra-time or penalty shoot-out. "Football," told the Associated Press Yvan Gastaut, historian of the University of Nice, "allows us to stage the immigration, an issue that is currently agitating the European countries."

Why Croatia will win the World Cup?

The four best-performing teams of this World Cup – the English, Belgian, Croatian and French semi-finals – all have national teams. Thus, even though the final will align with countries whose capitals are less than two hours away, the 32-team tournament was probably the most diverse in history

and Gastaut who organized an exhibition on football and migration. believes that the trend will continue to a point where lists of various teams will be so common that it will not matter and "we will be able to focus on something other than our origins".

This may already happen. When France won its only World Cup in 1998, at home, it was distinguished by a team whose 11 players were immigrants of first or second generation.

Zinedine Zidane, although born in France, was considered a foreigner by a large part of the country because of his Algerian roots. But after the World Cup, images of him kissing the trophy and crying while singing the French anthem turned Zidane into a national hero and flag bearer of a pluralistic France.

This summer, England has lined up a team of 11 players of African and Caribbean descent, a list that coach Gareth Southgate said "represents modern England."

"Our nation has changed," the British historian David Olusoga wrote in the Guardian newspaper. Where fandom football used to be "a rallying point for a xenophobic and sometimes racist trend of English nationalism", it "seemed more and more out of step with contemporary reality."

In fact, European as in England and France, have long benefited from awareness raising in poor neighborhoods, mainly immigrants, by giving them access to coaches and facilities. And academic reports have proven the value of this approach, the Associated Press quoted a 2013 study that looked at 10 years of European Champions League matches and found that the most diverse teams were outperforming less diverse teams

. "The diversity of the team is in the image of this beautiful country that is France," said midfielder Blaise Matuidi, born in France to African parents, at the time of the meeting. a press conference on Friday. "For us, it's superb.We are proud to represent this beautiful jersey and I think people are also proud to have a national team like that."

And the diversity of the football program French does not only benefit France. Since 2002, the country has produced more World Cup players than any nation on Earth. In Russia, 50 French players participated, playing not only for France but also for Senegal, Morocco, Portugal, Argentina and Tunisia. "We are obviously very proud of the success of our French players," said Didier. Quillot, the general manager of Ligue 1, France's leading national football league. "We consider France to be the first country in the world for training, academies, the identification of talents, their selection and their creation are clearly part of our DNA."

And nowadays, this DNA includes strands from dozens of countries, especially the country's former colonies in Africa, which have enjoyed football ties with France for more than eight decades. Raoul Diagne, born in French Guiana and of Senegalese descent, was the first Black to play for Les Bleus in 1931 and seven years later to play at the World Cup alongside two North African players.

Umtiti and reserve goalkeeper Steve Mandanda are the only players born in Africa this year, although there are French players whose parents come from Algeria, Angola , Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo

"The French team is and has long been a remarkably diverse group," writes Laurent Dubois, professor of engineering and engineering. French History at Duke University, in Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France which puts the accent on the connection between l & # 39; empire and sport. "It's a global team, a kind of transcultural republic."

On Sunday, he could also become a World Cup champion.