While he had assured that he did not want to “politicize sport”, the head of state finally staged a lot alongside the players of the French football team, from their semi-final Victorious against Morocco.
by Claire Gatinois
It took little. A suspicion of additional momentum and Emmanuel Macron was holding victory. Hers ? On the evening of the World Cup final in Qatar, which narrowly escaped the Blues against Argentina, Sunday, December 18, the Head of State hoped that the country forgot the energy crisis, the shock for a time Inflationist and pension reform, deemed unfair by a large part of the French, which he plans to launch in January?
The defeat, after a raging session of penalties, did not offer the tenant of the Elysée this carefree joy which would have raised, for a time, the morale of a depressed country. But whatever, seemed to say Emmanuel Macron. The content of the match, where the French team seemed absent from the game during the first 80 minutes, before making a spectacular comeback – helped by the three goals of striker Kylian Mbappé and the reinforcement of those called The “kids”, a new generation of promising footballers – was enough to serve the allegory that the President of the Republic dreamed.
This match “says something about what we are,” he explained Sunday evening, after the meeting, from the mixed area of the Lusail stadium, near Doha, describing a team with “of the heart and Unity. That’s the image of France! “. “What this match also tells us is that there is never a scenario written in advance, that it is always possible,” concluded Emmanuel Macron, greeting the unthinkable “reassembled” from the Blues. “It is resistance and feat,” he said, not hesitating to interfere in the world of football to call the coach, Didier Deschamps, to stay in office. “I want him to continue,” he said, calling on the interested party to “digest” defeat. A decision, which is however the responsibility of the president of the French Football Federation (FFF), Noël Le Graët.
“Our compatriots need simple and pure joys”
On November 17, before the start of the competition, the Head of State said it was not necessary to “politicize sport”. A line aimed at responding to opposition criticisms on the climate cost of the organization of the World Cup by Qatar and on the human rights situation in this country.
But an untenable attitude for the President of the Republic who claims to be a “fan” of football. As he had promised, Mr. Macron went to Qatar to follow the matches of the French team from the semi-finals. Since the victory of the Blues against Morocco on December 15, he has invested in competition as a real coach, visiting the players in the locker room at the end of the match. “Our compatriots need simple and pure joys, sporting sport and football in particular,” he explained, after the victorious semi-final. At the time everything was allowed.
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