IDENTITY
ADEKEYE ADEBAJO: When being French is not baguette-and-Brie enough
The storm that erupted after France recently won the World Cup with a team dominated by African immigrants needs to be revisited for historical context. Les Bleus had stars such as the Gallic Cameroonian-Algerian, Kylian Mbappé; the Guinean-Frenchman, Paul Pogba; the Malian-French citizen, N’Golo Kanté; the Gallic Angolan-Congolese, Blaise Matuidi; and the Cameroonian-Frenchman, Samuel Umtiti. All grew up in the ghettos of Paris where African and Arab youths face discrimination in employment and education, as well as police harassment. The issue of racism, identity and the French World Cup victory was triggered by a spat between comedian Trevor Noah and the French ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud. Noah joked that, with 14 of France’s 23 players being African immigrants, this represented an "African victory". Araud’s angry riposte to Noah was that "nothing could be less true"; he praised "French diversity" which, he observed, unlike American diversity, had "no hyphenated identi...
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