Zinedine Zidane has resigned as Real Madrid’s chief coach (see link below). We should wish him well. Mention of his name reminded me of arguments that began two decades ago. Zinedine was once an icon to French beurs (second-generation Arab citizens of France). For a while, after the 1998 World Cup when France beat Brazil, he was said to be a symbol of a new “multiracial”, “diverse” France, in which racism and discrimination would hopefully come to an end. I don’t think anybody quite said “multicultural”, because that was used disparagingly for the despised “Anglo-Saxon model” of dealing with ethnic diversity. But, in 1998, many people hoped against hope that football could change politics, even set history on a new course. Even the politicians were forced to praise him. But then they got back to their normal business of ensuring that nothing changed. Here’s what I wrote in 2009 about that episode.

“Black-Blanc-Beur”?

In the summer of 1998 there were claims that France had entered a new phase in its history, when it would be able to see itself as a diverse society, “a France”, in the words of Harlem Désir, “rich in all its children whatever their origin”. France’s multi-ethnic football team had won the World Cup and it seemed that the country had experienced a catharsis. President Chirac and Prime Minister Jospin watched the match in the stadium and, on Bastille Day two days later, Chirac “hailed his country’s victorious team … as a beautiful image of France and of the strength of its multiracial society” (BBC News 1998). Discrimination, division and racism belonged to the past: philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, until then a strong supporter of assimilation, declared that “from now on métissage [mixed race] is the message. France has nothing other to offer as a project than the vision of her own composition: the formula ‘Black-Blanc-Beur’ replaces the old integration model, and diversity replaces culture”.

However, the catharsis turned out to be little more than an emotional spasm and France‘s social harmony has proved very fragile indeed. Le Pen came second in the first round of the 2002 presidential elections and in 2005 rioting broke out in the banlieues of France. The riots began in Clichy-sous-Bois when two boys, aged 15 and 17, died climbing an electrified fence while fleeing the police. They spread throughout France, with petrol bombs being thrown and cars set on fire. Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy called the protesters “scum” (la rocaille), but it became clear that Clichy was a catalyst for protesters with a range of grievances about discrimination, marginalisation, racism and inequality. “It‘s unfortunate”, Nadir, from Aubervilliers, told the newspaper Le Monde, “but we have no choice.” According to sociologist Eric Macé, among the causes of the riots were “the highest unemployment rates in Europe, racist discrimination and growing urban marginalisation and, since the beginning of the 1990s, a stigmatisation of the youth of the working-class suburbs which makes them appear foreign to French society and constructs them as a menace …”

The fleeting hopes of 1998 seem foolish in this light. Zinedine Zidane, the football hero who scored two out of the three goals against Brazil, is no longer an icon to beurs. He came from the Marseilles bidonville [shanty town] of La Castellane but today “[h]is image is too pure”, one of the fans of the Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG) football team told Le Monde in 2006:

He is afraid to say what he is, that he is a beur … like the rest of us. And to say the truth about what it is like to be an Arab in this society.

The stands at PSG‘s ground are the scenes of what Hussey calls a civil war between two sets of supporters. These are “the predominantly white ‘Boulogne Boys’ of the Boulogne Stand (who are alleged to have far-right links) and the mixed-race and Arab fans … who gather on the Auteuil terraces.”

Football was not enough to heal the social divisions of France.

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The people of France, including the beurs, will have to keep trying.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/may/31/zinedine-zidane-real-madrid-manager-steps-down