How Mbappe led France on and off the pitch at Euro 2024

The final of Euro 2024 sees Spain take on England, in a tournament where the continent’s immigration debate has once again spilled onto the pitch.

Footballers at the UEFA European Championship have found themselves entwined in the divisive immigration debate that is sitting at the epicentre of elections in France, the United Kingdom and across Europe.

This tournament has been played at a uniquely fragile time for Europe’s political landscape and its footballers are not immune.

German star Toni Kroos, who is set to retire from the game, told a podcast he won’t return to his home country after his retirement due to what he called “uncontrolled” immigration.

In the stands, allegations of racism against players and violent chants between rival fans have threatened to derail the month-long celebration of football.

No side has been as actively political as France. French captain Kylian Mbappe came out strongly against Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, calling the far-right’s success in the first-round of France’s parliamentary elections “catastrophic“.

Mbappe wasn’t the only French footballer to speak up. Defender Jules Koundé said he was disappointed at the support for a party that “seeks to take away our freedom and take away the fact we live together”. Teammates Marcus Thuram and Ousmane Dembélé made similar comments in the lead-up to the tournament.

The National Rally lost momentum with voters after its promising first round performance, with the left-wing New Popular Front storming home in the second round to take the largest number of votes and deny a far-right parliament.

Still, Le Pen and her party are on the charge. They’ve gone from winning just eight seats in 2017 to 142 in 2024. It has given the National Rally a considerable base for a tilt at the French presidency in 2027.

The National Rally’s central message has been anti-immigration, a tool often at the core of populist parties and their appeal to voters.

Speaking with 360info’s Leave It To The Experts, Associate Professor Ben Wellings, an expert in European Nationalism at Monash University said parties like National Rally are capitalising on fears and anxieties.

“It’s very powerful when you seek to find a scapegoat for current ills and current concerns and current anxieties. And a lot of this is not just about it’s not just strictly about economics and material conditions,” Wellings said.

“It’s also about a sense of security: Do you see your neighbourhood changing? Do you see your country changing even if you don’t live in a diverse neighbourhood? That creates anxieties and that can be translated into a politics of resentment and, in certain cases, a politics of nostalgia.”

France is not the only country whose racial politics have exploded at the Euros. England is preparing to play in its second straight final at the tournament, hoping to go one better than their penalty shootout heartbreak in 2021.

It will do with grim memories of online racist abuse directed at three players — Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka — who missed penalty kicks.

This time around, England is attempting to bring football glory to a country in rapid transformation, locked in an immigration debate of its own. The Conservative Party’s 14-year rule has ended, with Rishi Sunak swept out and Labour’s Keir Starmer taking the top job.

Although Starmer has declared the Conservatives’ controversial offshore processing scheme in Rwanda for asylum seekers “dead and buried”, his party pledges to be tougher on ‘smashing the gangs‘, lining up counter-terrorism powers to halt would-be applicants for asylum.

He does so as hardline anti-immigration campaigner Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party took 14 percent of the national vote, the third highest in the country. Wellings sees a number of sources fuelling voter anger.

“This instance of voter disenchantment in the short term we could put down to a cost-of-living crisis, people’s purchasing power going backwards and the sense that certain groups are having their status diminished within sociopolitics,” he said.

“In the longer term, there does seem to be something that needs fixing with politics, and its politics in relation to the economy. When we see people like Emmanuel Macron, who’ve really nailed their colours to the mast of the neoliberal project and that of liberalisation, it seems to be running out of steam.”

When Kylian Mbappe criticised Marine Le Pen’s vision for France, the politician — who studied at France’s top law school before leading the party her father founded — hit out at the footballer raised in Paris’ low socioeconomic outer suburbs, saying well-paid athletes and entertainers shouldn’t tell people how to vote.

But as Le Pen’s hopes of controlling the French parliament faded fast in the votes to come, there may be a case to be made that the French football superstar hasn’t completely lost touch with his roots in the less glamorous parts of Paris.

You can listen to 360info’s podcast, “Leave it to the Experts” hosted by Emma Hoy, on Spotify and YouTube.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.