French football and colonial heritage

Reading SOCCER EMPIREwhen the French football team has just delivered a heartbreaking performance in South Africa, is an exercise full of nostalgia. Because the piece of bravery of the book, the 1998 World Cup appears today as a moment of history, an exhilarating parenthesis and a nothing aberrant, well closed since: not only because of the current results of the Blues, but above all Because the hopes then placed in victory, those of a nation reconciled with itself, are a collective illusion, dissipated from the presidential election of 2002.

Between global history and taste of football

The author, Laurent Dubois, renowned historian of the Haitian revolution, is also a great connoisseur of football and a patent supporter of the French team, capable of singing the Marseillaise with head killing in the streets of East Lansing, Michigan, One evening of victory. He explains, in the preface, that this is the multicultural dimension of this team that he likes so much, because he sees “ a promise of solidarity, tolerance, community and cooperation »(P. XIV).

In agreement with this profession of faith, SOCCER EMPIRE is a very controlled story of the French team from a colonial and postcolonial perspective. Dubois dissects the way in which West Indian, North Africans, Africans, were selected, of which the public appreciated their talents, but also racist insults and discriminatory behavior that they have often suffered. Above all, it shows, in the most removed passages in the book, where scholarship is associated with the passion for football, the hopes placed by the colonized or post-colonized populations in a sport which was much more than an entertainment. It was a poignant staging of debates on the Republic and the nation. Dubois just notes that the favorite team of West Indians has long been Brazil, because identification with its players was more immediate and rewarding than those of the French team. If I can allow myself this personal remark, I remember that in the suburbs of Paris where I lived, it was the still fresh memory of Pelé, Jairzinho and their teammates of the 1970 legendary team who occupied my Spirit during football games, and which I identified with, rather than that of the Blues, of which, before 1978, I had never heard of. The national attachment was in this case less powerful than the diasporical attachment to color players, of which I was proud.

The general tone of the book is playful, and even delighted when it comes to narrating the semi-final and the 1998 final, France transformed into a giant stadium which capsizes with joy. In this, this rather light book contrasts with the literature on postcolonial studies, generally gloomy. We also feel that the author has not only consulted the press of the time, but that he experienced the moments of 1998 and 2006, which gives his story a very personal dimension.

Competing loyalties

In this, this book is not that of a specialized historian of football, who would have taken care to mark a distance from good aloi with his object. The more the object of research is marginal in the academic field, the more his practitioners tend to report their professionalism and to distance themselves from the requests of emotion or commitment. Now Laurent Dubois is a historian who loves football enough to turn away from his usual research and devote a few years of work to it, and who, therefore, is free enough not to hide his pleasure in seeing matches, to meet with footballers and writing on football. That is SOCCER EMPIRE A jubilant book, as long as the reader minimally appreciates football. It will probably not convert the most refractory to the round ball.

The construction of the book is another of its strengths: overall chronological, the subject is crossed by long historical digressions, skillfully sewn to the general frame by an idea, a theme, a character. The chapter on the France-Algeria match of October 2001, for example, remained in the memories due to the whistles which accompanied the Marseillaise and the invasion of the field by beurs supporters at the 74^e Minute, serves as a support for comments on the Place du Football in colonial Algeria. In the 1910s and 1920s, many clubs “ Muslims Were founded, like the Fc Muslim of Mascara or the Mouloudia Club Algerois, with a strong anti -colonial dimension. Later, the Fln Constituted his own team, standard bearer of the Algerian independence cause in the world, with high-level players whose defection impressed a lot in France. Then we come back to the 2001 match, to understand that it was imagined as a reconciliation, which, of course, did not go as planned. The following year, the France-Senegal World Cup ended badly for the French, but the early elimination of the Blues led to a transfer of loyalty to Senegal, which continued its path to the quarter-finals. This is an opportunity to speak of Patrick Vieira, of Senegalese origin, as well as the players of the Senegalese team, of the “ Senefs Employed by French clubs, before coming to football in the suburbs.

Zidane and Thuram: School case or exceptions ?

Two emblematic figures of French football are the subject of special attention: Kabyle Zinedine Zidane and Guadeloupe Lilian Thuram. Their biographical journeys are detailed and strongly contextualized. Thuram is a bit of the hero of the book (he is also on the cover, carried in triumph by Henry and Lama), and the affection and admiration of the author for the famous defender appear clearly. Unlike Zidane, who only expressed a ball on the foot, Thuram was a committed public figure, making his voice heard many times and marking unusual interest in professional football for civic questions. The end of the chapter on the 2005 riots presents a face to face between Nicolas Sarkozy and Lilian Thuram, one castigating the “ bands “, THE “ criminals “And the famous” scum “, The other evoking the” social justice “And his intimate understanding of events:” I am from the suburbs ». But Thuram is a very atypical figure in professional football. For various reasons (their income and their lifestyle isolate them from the concerns of the world ; Football leaders condemn the speeches ; Their school training is often limited), most of its teammates – including West Indians and “ Africans ” – Be silent. We can then wonder about the exemplarity of the Thuram case, which “ shoot Perhaps excessively the author’s point of view in the sense of a committed and kind team by the very origin of his players.

THE “ ball From Zidane, during the final of the 2006 World Cup, was carefully analyzed in the last chapter: he provided the opportunity to Laurent Dubois to review French and foreign reactions, from the extreme right rejoicing player retirement (“ Ciao thug ! “) Until novelist Dany Laferrière greeting the one” who does not know how to behave in public ». Dubois extends Laferrière’s purpose by a very fair reflection on colonial violence (post) and its psychological effects, on these thousands of racist insults that must be swallowed in silence when one is black or Arab footballer, until that May one of them be too much, the one to respond at all costs. As marked by this strange defeat, the end of SOCCER EMPIRE is a thinking, like the author, who, looking at young people to exchange some passes in this too silent night of July 10, 2006, concludes that football remains, despite everything, a metaphor for exchange and dialogue .