“Mbappé, Maignan, Koundé, Tchouaméni, thank you for using your image to say the terms. Reactions of this type have multiplied on social networks since the death of Nahel (17), shot dead on Tuesday June 27 during a police check in Nanterre. The strong positions taken by several executives of the French football team are reminiscent of the mobilization of American sport after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 in Minneapolis. “My France hurts” (Kylian Mbappé), “It’s always for the same people that being in the wrong leads to death” (Mike Maignan), “Why a video had to come out for the case is not covered up? (Aurélien Tchouaméni) are all proof that speech has been released in French football, including therefore to comment on extremely sensitive societal news.
In the process, and even if the contours of its publication remain rather vague, a press release attributed to the France team appeared on Friday evening to “call for appeasement”, in the face of urban violence in France. Do these Blues of 2023 have in their ranks the heirs of the committed Brazilian Socrates ? And why the death of two other Ile-de-France teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, in 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois, which had been the trigger for the riots of 2005 in the French suburbs, had then only been a theme? picked up by rappers and almost not by footballers, apart from Lilian Thuram? International in the 2000s (23 selections), Steve Marlet advances an implacable explanation.
We also had our point of view on such current topics, but the big difference is that we did not have access to these great tools that are social networks. At the time, we would have had to ask a journalist if we wanted to react. Today, you can prepare a reaction in a few minutes from your living room and it is quickly relayed everywhere. And then it didn’t really interest the media to ask us about anything other than football. If, for example, I had been handed a microphone after the 2005 riots, I would have spoken. »
Lilian Thuram has long been an exception
For the former Auxerre, OL and OM striker, there is no doubt that this development is positive, like the leader of this tricolor generation Kylian Mbappé. “He is the perfect prototype of the model player and he has become an opinion leader, he believes. Many people expect him to take a stand on such subjects and it is very good that he expresses himself in this way. It feels good to have come out of this cliché of the soccer player unable to align two words that we suffered. “But the appearance of social networks cannot be the only explanation for this new era, when we see that among the 1998 world champions, only Lilian Thuram spoke on subjects as sensitive as racism in football, the chaotic friendly match France-Algeria of 2001or the famous “Kärcher cleaning” promised in 2005 to the Cité des 4,000 in La Courneuve by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior.
The national sports icon was then called Zinédine Zidane, whose non-football media releases can be counted on the fingers of one hand, except to block the National Front in 2002 and 2017. Inevitably, the difference in personalities between Zizou and Mbappé , two generational leaders of the Blues, clashes. “When the model to follow is such a phenomenon of ease of expression and self-confidence, it necessarily opens up prospects for other players, notes Patrick Mignon, sports sociologist. It contrasts with our historical weight of Coubertinian morality, which pushed a French athlete to be exemplary only by practicing his sport. We see that a player like Mbappé has also acquired a lot of room for maneuver in relation to his club and the FFF. »
“Mike Maignan experienced the riots in Villiers-le-Bel up close”
Essential or even untouchable both at PSG and with the Blues, of which he is now the captain, the kid from Bondy can dare to take a “politicized” approach without fearing the slightest sporting consequence. Nevertheless, are we dealing in this sequence of footballer support for Nahel with a meticulously orchestrated communication in the wheel of the tricolor captain, or with a real personal and authentic speech?
Former partner of Mike Maignan in Villiers-le-Bel (Val-d’Oise) in U11 and U13, and now an educator in the first club of the Blues goalkeeper, Florian Lesire is formal: “Knowing him, it’s sure and sure it comes from him. Mike lived in the Carreaux district in Villiers-le-Bel, and he experienced the riots of 2007 in our city up close. He is therefore really touched by this news, and concerned by this tense link between young people and the police in the neighborhoods. We ask a lot of footballers, but there it is important that he seizes such a story. We feel that he wants to deliver a strong message, namely that everyone is not housed in the same boat, that there is a two-speed justice”.
“We must not put up barriers”
A French international agent also assures him: “All these players are not there to play roles. They do not seek to be loved but to be true”. Moreover, they did not wait for Nahel’s death to express themselves on subjects close to their hearts. In a published interview in October 2022 on YouTube by his agency Excellence Sport Nation, Jules Koundé explained himself on the subject.
We are lucky to be able to reach people with the platform we have, and to be able to show our personality outside of football. I want to share what I find right, it’s natural for me. It’s changing on that side, we can talk freely, even if some people tell me: “You’re a footballer, stay in your corner, talk about football”. But we shouldn’t put up barriers. »
Antoine Griezmann thus found himself in the light of Stubborn from 2019 to affirm: “Homophobia in football, that’s enough”. With the 22 other world champions in Russia, “Grizou” created in 2021 the endowment fund Generation 2018. Footballers thus decide collectively which associations and social actions they will support over time. With an office made up of four executives, Hugo Lloris, Raphaël Varane, Olivier Giroud and Blaise Matuidi, Generation 2018 focuses on three main themes: health, equality and education. After highlighting the Pink Blouses, which support people isolated in hospital, the world champions launched an action on human rights, which follows the position taken by the Blues at the last World Cup.
“Understand all the issues before taking a position”
“In Qatar, seen as the FFF and the State were silent on the subject, unlike other federations, it was a delicate position to take, says one in the entourage of Génération 2018. Due to he lack of confidence on these sensitive subjects, players think about the risk/benefit balance. They fear that it will turn against them, or that they will be blamed for not having also mentioned this or that. This is why they want to understand all the issues before taking a position, as they did when meeting with NGOs on the question of human rights in Qatar. Before being professional footballers, they are citizens and they want to mobilize. Everyone is really in a logic of action and not of communication. »
An approach that seems to be a common thread for our Blues in 2023, according to a players’ agent: “They all take part in social actions and many of them do it with real modesty, far from the cameras, which is all to their credit. They know they are privileged and they want to act, to have a voice that carries”.