Rajoy calls France squad a team "without Frenchmen" – backlash erupts ahead of Spain clash

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Racist comments by former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy about the French men’s football team sparked a backlash from France and Spain’s left-wing parties ahead of their World Cup match against Spain on Tuesday.

In an article published in the Spanish daily El Debate, Rajoy describe the French team as a “very high-level squad. Of course, without Frenchmen,” alluding to the African origins of some of the players.

Rajoy’s comments sparked reactions from socialists and communist parties in France and Spain.

Fabien Roussel, the leader of the French communist party, criticized Rajoy’s statement, writing in a post on X: “They can’t help showing blatant racism to try to piss off our beautiful French team!”

Pierre-Alexandre Anglade, a centrist MP who presides over the European affairs committee in the French National Assembly, called the remarks “a grave insult against our French team and against our country.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) said : “It is shameful that Mariano Rajoy, who has been President of the Government of Spain, makes this type of statement.”

Rajoy’s article also made a jab at the Spanish left by stating he does not like “either the Devils or the reds,” in a reference to the Belgian football team, known as the Red Devils, who lost against Spain on Friday.

A member of the center-right, Christian democratic Popular Party, Rajoy led the Spanish government between December 2011 and May 2018.

His comments come just a week after Hebe Casado, deputy governor of the Menduza province in Argentina, described the French team as an “African team, without any manners,” in a social media post on X after France beat Paraguay 1-0, prompting the French Embassy in Argentina to ban her from entering the premises .

Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla, meanwhile, spewed a volley of online abuse at France’s star striker, Kylian Mbappé. Amarilla, with the centrist Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), called Mbappé a “brute,” mocked his intelligence and questioned his French identity, describing him as a “ colonized Cameroonian pretending to be French.”

Amarilla’s comments sparked condemnation across France , with Mbappé himself lambasting her. “You are a despicable woman and unworthy of your position,” the footballer wrote on X.