OpinionFifa World Cup: Trevor Noah is right – France win masks the country’s ills while racist attitudes to immigrants remain
Daily Show host argues with French diplomat over ‘Africa won the World Cup’ joke, but comments touch a nerve because there’s element of truth to them
An ethnicity is only an ethnicity when it is convenient. Ask the France ambassador to the United States, who claimed in a letter to The Daily Show host Trevor Noah that the players with African backgrounds who helped his country win the Fifa World Cup were “French”. They were not “Africans”, he said, responding to a joke Noah made in an earlier show that Africa won the World Cup.
The ambassador was insisting they were French because they had won the World Cup. In most other walks of French life, they would be “immigrants”.
Sport is ephemeral in its euphoria. A victory in a major event such as the World Cup can lead to an intoxication of the heart, in which feelings that never previously existed suddenly well up in the chest, in which hatred is replaced by superficial love and where reality is suspended as people overindulge in happy hour.
Once the narcotic of triumph wears off, it is back to what it always has been. In the hangover that follows, most can’t believe what they were saying, doing or feeling at their drunkard peak.
That a France packed with the sons of immigrants brought the country together is a myth. For a moment, yes, French people of all colours and background rejoiced as one, but it won’t last long.