A Gallic slice of self-destruction...

France’s dismal performance and abject behavior at the South African World Cup provoked consternation at home, and sardonic glee abroad.
Is the French football team, this feud-racked band of brats, to quote Roger Cohen, solely responsible for the shameful fiasco?
France’s spineless performance was such that the 2006 finalists were dispatched back to Paris after just three games, none of which they managed to win.
What happened?
We did not really play as a team, French mid fielder Yoann Gourcuff told the sports daily L’Equipe.
Undermined by what The Guardian called arrogance and complacency, the French team was unable to put its divisions and egos aside in order to fight collectively for a common goal: victory.
The squad, undoubtedly also due to Coach Raymond Domenech’s incompetence, never conglomerated into a unified whole with common objectives.
Riven by divisions, antagonistic clans coexisted uneasily within the squad: the inner city gang, comprising those who grew up in deprived projects surrounding Paris, including Ribery and Anelka whose profanity-laced assessment of Domenech led to his ouster from the team and the World Cup; the Caribbean gang, led by Henry and the small town gang, which included Lloris, Toulalan and Govou, who all play in Lyon, the best French team of the last ten years.
It seems that clan loyalty became more important than playing for France.
Hence, racial and perhaps even religious tensions (as some of the players are Muslim, such as Abidal and Ribery) have been undermining the team for months, if not years, and festering for that long due to Domenech’s total lack of leadership.
The absence of an undisputed leader on and off the pitch, such as Zinedine Zidane facilitated the disintegration process.
Yet a team can be divided and lose, without disgracing itself in front of the entire world.
It seems that some French players lacked essential qualities such as a sense of respect, for others but also for themselves.
What values do players the likes of Anelka actually embrace, if any?
Most of today’s players left school at a young age (Anelka was already playing for top teams at the age of 18), thus have little or no education at all. They come from a generation who come from the banlieues, and they don’t necessarily have the cultural background to understand what they did, Philippe Tétart, a sports historian, told the NYT.
What values have they extracted from the projects?
Locker room disagreements and outbursts are common.
Yet, what kind of individual treats another the way Anelka did?
The day after Anelka’s expulsion, the French team refused to practice to protest the French Football Federation’s decision to dismiss him. A fist fight almost broke out between the team captain Patice Evra and the fitness coach, in front of hundreds of television cameras
Though it was presented as a unanimous decision on the part of all 22 players, several players in fact (Lloris, Gourcuff and Sagna in particular), wanted to practice but were threatened with physical assault by Ribery, Abidal and Evra, should they try to get off the team bus.
The scabs relented so that no fisticuffs ensued.
Again, what kind of values does such behavior evince?
We now have proof that the French team is not a team at all, but a gang of hooligans that knows only the morals of the mafia, Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent writer and philosopher said in a radio interview.
The team does not represent France, with its clans, ethnic divisions, its persecution of the star pupil (Gourcuff). It is a reflection of it, and holds up a frightening mirror, in which we are forced to recognize ourselves, he told le JDD.
The French team had no common, core values, thus its paltry performance.
Does that imply that the French nation as a whole no longer exists, in the sense that no fundamental values bind all of its citizens?
Do Parisians, provincials, inner city dwellers, second and third generation immigrants (who are all French citizens) whether they be black, beur (of North African origin) Muslim or not have any values in common?
Does liberté, égalité, fraternité still mean anything, particularly to those who live in the banlieues that erupted in both 2005 and 2007? Nicolas Sarkozy was then Interior Minister, France’s top cop.
When President Sarkozy visited La Courneuve, outside of Paris, Wednesday evening, (it was a surprise nocturnal visit without any media presence), in Seine St. Denis, France’s poorest Départment, he was greeted by a youth who used language similar to Anelka’s: 'Vas te faire enculer connard, ici t'es chez moi. When the police tried to arrest him for insulting an official, a fight broke out and he suffered a broken nose…
Some in the political opposition contend that the French football team was merely the reflection of the France ruled by Sarkozy. The defeat of the French team is also Sarkozy’s, Jerome Cahuzac, of the Socialist party and President of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, told Le Post. 2010 is different from 1998 (the year les Bleus won the World Cup hosted in France). The mood is different and the current climate within the team is in fact exalted by Sarkozy: individualism, selfishness, everyone for themselves, and the only way to judge human success is the check you get at the end of the month.
US society is highly individualistic and materialistic however, yet its team has displayed great dedication and team spirit. Great teams are built on great faith, faith in the team’s possibilities, in one’s teammates and their ability and desire to serve the team.
After the US came back from a two-goal deficit to tie the game against Slovenia last week, Landon Donovan, the great US player, said my guess is there's not many teams in this tournament that could have done what we did and arguably won the game. And that is what the American spirit is about. And I'm sure people back home are proud of that, according to the NYT. The US would have won had not an inept call by the referee deprived them of the winning goal.

The French team floundered because it has lost that French spirit, so present in 1998.
In essence, do the failure and gross deficiencies of the French team truly reflect the demise of France’s social and economic model and its inability to integrate its black, Muslim immigrant and now French population?
The 1998 victory by the Black, Blanc, Beur team was seen by many at the time as a validation of the French model of integration.
Did the model really disintegrate in the ensuing twelve years?
Was France really the racially harmonious nation that the French football team embodied with such class and ability in 1998?
We all wanted to believe this, but it was a delusion.
A mere four years later, outgoing Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin failed to make it to the second and decisive round of the 2002 Presidential election, outpolled by Jean Marie Le Pen, leader of the xenophobic and extremist Front National. Incumbent President Jacques Chirac then soundly defeated Le Pen.
Yet, the fact that Zidane, Henry and, yes, Anelka emerged to become rich and famous athletes is living proof that the system can work for minorities.
It was able to detect and nurture talent, and allow it the opportunity to flourish.
France was not a model of integration in 1998, and neither is the nation irremediably divided and torn by ethnic and religious tensions today.
Zidane’s great team did not win because Jospin was running the country, nor did the 2010 team lose because Sarkozy is President.
What is undeniable however is that the French model of integration has lost its credibility in the banlieues because the opportunities it does provide are far too few.
Not everyone can become Zidane or Djamel Debbouze, one of France‘s best paid entertainers.
The system needs to be able to provide everyone, and first and foremost, those who live in the most deprived neighborhoods with a decent education and the means to live a dignified, productive life. Sarkozy should revitalize his discrimination positive (affirmative action) program and devote the necessary means to revitalize these neighborhoods.
Only genuine economic opportunity can pacify les banlieues and give them faith once again in France’s model embodied by the Republic’s motto, Liberté, égalité, fratenité.
This will take considerable leadership, which has been lacking on this issue for the better part of thirty years.
It needs to be addressed if we do not want the likes of Anelka, Gallas and the other football prima donnas to become the sole role models for the children of the banlieues…
(the title of this post comes from David Hytner’s fine article in The Guardian;

the photograph above can be found here)