"They are currently ranked number one in the FIFA rankings. They also have a top-level squad. That said, they don't have any French players, and they are playing very well."
Mariano Rajoy
Former
Spanish PM accused of racism in remarks about French football team
Political
leaders in both countries rebuke Mariano Rajoy after he writes team ‘does not
have any French players’
Sam Jones
in Madrid
Sun 12
Jul 2026 18.39 BST
The
former Spanish conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy is facing growing
accusations of racism after writing in a World Cup newspaper column that the
French national team “does not have any French players”.
Rajoy,
who was in office from 2011 to 2018, pondered Spain’s looming semi-final
showdown with France in an article for the online newspaper El Debate on
Friday.
“It’s
worth remembering that France has been a two-time world champion and was a
finalist in the last World Cup,” he wrote. “They’ve won every match they’ve
played in this World Cup and are currently ranked No 1 in the Fifa rankings.
They also have a top-level squad. That said, they don’t have any French
players. And they’re playing very well. They’ll be a formidable opponent.”
Rajoy’s
remarks, which have drawn comparisons to a Paraguayan senator’s recent racist
social media attack on Kylian Mbappé, elicited a scathing response from Spain’s
current prime minister.
“There
are those who still measure belonging by surname, place of birth, or skin
colour,” Pedro Sánchez wrote in a post on X.
“Others
measure it by our roots in a country and our will to contribute to it. Playing
soccer. Caring for our elders. Or opening businesses. Spain belongs to those
who love it and work for it. Not to those who shame it with xenophobic
statements.”
Rajoy’s
words provoked a furious response in France.
“That’s
completely unacceptable,” France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, told the
French channel BFMTV on Sunday. “That’s completely not what France is about.
France is a country of diversity where everyone can thrive and find their
place.”
Olivier
Faure, the leader of the French Socialist party, said the French national team
was composed only of French citizens.
“France
is not an ethnic nation; it has no skin colour or religion,” he added in a post
on X. “It is a political nation united around the republican motto – much to
the chagrin of the racist right.”
Fabien
Roussel, the leader of the French Communist party, condemned Rajoy and said his
words were reminiscent of the racist tirade from the Paraguayan senator,
Celeste Amarilla, who called Mbappé a “colonised Cameroonian, desperately
trying to pass himself off as French”.
Roussel
said: “They cannot help but spew filthy racism in an attempt to annoy our
beautiful French team.”
Others
saw a familiar pattern. “The same racist obsessions and insults resurface every
time [France] wins,” said Naïma Moutchou, France’s minister for overseas
territories.
“These
aren’t just ‘slips of the tongue’. It’s a methodical and normalised hatred of
France and what it represents.”
Moutchou
called on the French football federation, which has already filed a complaint
with Paris prosecutors over Amarilla’s remarks, to “pursue all legal avenues”.
Sánchez
ended his post on X with a cordial wish: “France, we’ll see you in the
semi-finals. May the best team win and may racism lose.”
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