Ex-Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy’s Racist Comment On French World Cup Team Sparks Backlash, Saying French Squad Plays ‘Without Frenchmen’

Former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has ignited a political firestorm days before Spain’s World Cup semifinal against France, after writing that the French squad plays “without Frenchmen” — a remark widely condemned as racist by officials in both countries.

Rajoy, who led Spain’s conservative government from 2011 to 2018, made the comment in his latest World Cup column for the outlet El Debate, where he has been offering commentary after each Spanish match at the tournament. Previewing Tuesday’s semifinal against Didier Deschamps‘ side, Rajoy acknowledged France fields a “top-tier squad” that has won every match so far, but added the qualifier that they were doing so without Frenchmen — an apparent reference to the number of players with immigrant backgrounds or family ties to former French colonies.

The claim doesn’t hold up statistically. Of the 26 players on France’s World Cup roster, only three were actually born outside the country: Michael Olise, born in London to a British-Nigerian father and French-Algerian mother; Marcus Thuram, born in Parma while his father, French football legend Lilian Thuram, was playing there; and Brice Samba, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Star forward Kylian Mbappé, despite having an Algerian mother, was born and raised in France.

The remark drew swift condemnation. Ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party lawmaker José Cepeda called it “racist and xenophobic” on Spanish television and said it was shameful for a former head of government to speak that way.

In France, Equality Minister Aurore Bergé posted on social media that repeated racist outbursts targeting the team were intolerable and called for sports to be judged on talent alone. French Communist Party secretary Fabien Roussel went further, demanding Rajoy face consequences and drawing a parallel to a separate incident involving a Paraguayan politician’s comments about Mbappé, which prompted Paris prosecutors to open an investigation for aggravated public insult.

The controversy lands at a politically charged moment: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is due in Paris on Tuesday for Bastille Day, the same day the two nations meet in Dallas for their semifinal. It also revives a long-running debate in French politics over the makeup of the national team, echoing arguments made in the late 1990s by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, which claimed France’s multicultural, immigrant-heavy squads didn’t represent the “real” France — claims that were broadly rejected as racist at the time and have resurfaced periodically since.

Neither Rajoy nor his column’s publisher had issued a public response to the criticism as of Sunday.