If you think England is upset about its World Cup squad ...
Veronique Forge
is a freelance print and television journalist now based in London. She was previously a journalist and presenter on the TV channel Direct 8 in France.
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Whatever the problems of the England team and relations between the players and their manager, Fabio Capello, things are worse in France. There's a government investigation into
football management. Intellectuals are losing their temper in noisy televised discussions of football. And President Sarkozy has been forced to comment in a press conference, at a time when the country faces its toughest economic crisis for decades.
Jacques Attali, Francois Mitterrand's
main adviser, who is usually measured in his comments, even said on Slate.fr t
hat he wanted France to lose its match - as did 75% of those polled by the French television channel France 2.
Facebook and Twitter have been
alive with criticism of both the striker Nicholas Anelka for his behaviour and Raymond Domenech for his poor management of the French team.
It may sound hilarious - or appalling - to anyone who isn't French, but the public outrage is intimately rooted in the politicisation of football since 1998.
I will always remember the World Cup
that year - when, as the host nation, France emerged victorious. In the streets, in the bars, at work and of course in the media, football was the only subject on everyone's lips.
Like all other French girls, I was
hooked, partly thanks to the glamour of players such as Zinedine Zidane.
What changed in 1998 was the attitude of the French elite towards football. Suddenly politicians were putting themselves forward as experts on the World Cup. There was a belief that, if we won, France would overcome its eternal sluggish spirit. It was known as 'l'effet Coupe du Monde' (the World Cup effect). It worked, to some extent, as it boosted our national pride.
This year, once again, amid crisis in the
European economy, the nation wanted to believe the story would be repeated and that France would emerge from the World Cup reinvigorated.
On the contrary, we are experiencing the most catastrophic scenario. As Roselyne Bachelot, the sports minister put it,
"nothing will ever be the same again, the team has tarnished France's image".
Christophe Dugarry, an ex-player from the successful 1998 French team, compares the French football squad to an "insane asylum".
And this time, if there is an 'e
ffet Coupe du Monde', it will be of a very different kind, as the media link national disarray in football to France's broken society and integration policy. In Liberation, the sociologist Stephane Beaud notes anxiously that "les Bleus", as the French call the national team, "are the children of urban segregation".
If disasters on the pitch have wider
political repercussions, politicians have only themselves to blame for wanting to share in the glory of 1998.
Veronique Forge is a French press and television journalist who was recently a presenter on the Direct 8 channel in
The author was on BBC Radio 4's Media Show talking about the subject of this blog.
