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PARIS – Notre-Dame's bells rang on Monday, metro drivers rang in Paris and the crowds invaded the Champs-Élysées for the second day in a row – an explosion of joy that swept across France there was over 20 years old. the country won the last men's football World Cup.
But this new delusion speaks as much to France's recent past as to the happiness of the moment. Cross-cultural celebrations have been enthusiastically welcomed since the end of the match on Sunday night – a stark contrast to the divisions between race and race, between city and suburbs immigrants against natives exacerbated by the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks and 2016 in Nice
"It's a kind of national relief after the attacks," says Patrick Weil, historian of immigration at Sciences Po and Yale
. By hostility to dark-skinned migrants, the bond of the victorious French football team of stars of African descent is seen as an implicit reprimand to countries that have historically been less open to the world. immigration.
Croatia, the team that France defeated in the final Human Rights Watch said on its website that "all members are white," said one country that "forced asylum seekers and migrants ".
In France, crowds swarm in the streets Sunday and Monday. The day reflected the winning team: multiethnic and multicultural. Black, brown and white had no problem getting together, dancing together and waving the country's flag, which is rare in France
The attacks had been forgotten, for the sake of the world. moment
"There are people of all origins". Alexis Canto, 23, said of the team, amid celebrations on the Champs-Elysees. "It's in the image of France – a representative team of France today.We are all immigrants, when you get there," he said, noting his own Spanish roots
"The fact that this is a positive event, we all need it," Canto added, 19659002] True, similar sentiments were expressed after the famous French team known as "Black-White-Beur" – Black-White-North African – won the 1998 World Cup. Four years later, however, the far-right National Front brought him into the second round, shocking France, and days of riots shook the predominantly immigrant suburb of Paris in 2005.
France has since changed, and this national team is even more clearly dominated by children of immigrants.
French television covered every movement of the team on Monday, from its traje t at the Moscow airport until his disembarkation in Paris. The tired traders on the Champs-Élysées were still cleaning up the celebrations and looting of the previous night – 292 arrests took place across France – even as the boulevard was filling up again for the triumph of the team towards the 39; Élysée. Black teens in the suburban longshoremen were standing side by side with the polite whites of the city.
France has gone through a difficult period. And on Monday, a new reminder of the specter of terrorism looming in the background: The country has expelled Djamel Beghal, who, as the godfather of the January 2015 attack in the Paris office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo [1945-1912] may be French. The most feared prisoner.
While crowds were queuing up on the Champs-Elysees to welcome the Blues, the football team is known, Mr. Beghal was released from a Briton prison after serving 17 years and immediately put on a plane for his native Algeria. Mr. Beghal has been widely described as the mentor of the terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.
These murders, and the subsequent attacks of 2015 and 2016, have done more than sow fear: they have also torn the country apart. The fragile social fabric
The integration of minorities, interrupted in the best of cases – the unemployment of immigrants in France is higher than the national average – was delayed. Positive action is avoided. France, which has more or less welcomed the immigrant parents of the stars of Sunday, has become very ambiguous about hosting.
"You really sweated," President Emmanuel Macron told the players in their Moscow locker. room after their victory. "You were proud of your country, and you raised the whole country!" On Monday, he was ready to welcome the team to the Elysée Palace.
But Mr. Macron as much as anyone is associated with a tough new immigration, refusing cargoes of African migrants in the Mediterranean and pushing laggards across the Italian border. This hard line earned him points on the right, even though it cost him support in his own political movement. Still, Mr. Macron is fully aware of the wind in the sails of populist parties across Europe, and he knows the same thing could happen in France
The National Anti-Immigration Party Rally – until 39; recently known as the National Front – Marine Le Pen continues to stifle Mr. Macron's heels, just behind the president's party in the European elections next year. Ms. Le Pen also scored 33% against Macron in last year's presidential vote.
In the midst of Monday's euphoria, it was recalled that his continuous warnings about "migratory submersion" have not been forgotten.
won the World Cup. May be. Without a doubt. But what France? ", Wrote in a press release the writer of the far right Renaud Camus, a prominent defender of Ms. Le Pen.
Was it "New France, multicultural and multiethnic, France's Great Replacement," France replaced, colonized, conquered, invaded? "Asked Mr. Camus. "The composition of the team reflects only one thing," he writes. "Ethnic substitution."
Sunday's victory will it put a stop to such feelings? The French media pointed out that crazy celebrations were taking place everywhere, from small villages to big cities, and not just in places populated by large immigrant populations.
"It was a victory against all those who are unable to see that with the children of immigration of all origins, one can make compatriots, and fellow citizens of talent," said Mr. Weil. "Since France became a country of immigration" in the 19th century, "immigration has brought a lot to France."
Aurelien Breeden contributed to the report.
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