France’s far right has shifted its attack on the national soccer team from racism to class

France’s national soccer team has become an unlikely barometer for the country’s leading far-right party. The shifting rhetoric about the team from party leaders reveals broader attempts at moderation — from appeals around racial identity to working-class solidarity — and helps explain why the National Rally (RN) is now seen as having a genuine shot at the presidency.

Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen was perhaps the most vocal domestic antagonist of the team in the 1990s, when it featured many nonwhite players from former colonies. He called them “fake Frenchmen” who don’t sing the national anthem, saying they had no place in a French team. In 1996 he complained that an Algerian had been included to please Arabs, a Kanak who couldn’t sing the anthem, and blacks to satisfy people from the Antilles.

As Marine Le Pen prepared to take over the party, she initially echoed her father, calling the 2010 World Cup squad a collection of “ethnic, religious clans” creating apartheid within the team. But as the governing parties weakened, she saw an opportunity to win over traditional center-right voters. She insisted the party was “not racist,” expelled her father for Holocaust denial, and rebranded the movement as the National Rally.

Le Pen conceded she knew nothing about football and preferred rugby, but abandoned her father’s tradition of denigrating the team’s successes. When France won the 2018 World Cup, she targeted politicians clinging to the team’s victory, not the players themselves. This reflected a broader redirection of far-right resentments from race to class, epitomized by the yellow-vest protests.

In 2024, after RN gains in regional elections, captain Kylian Mbappé called the outcome “catastrophic” and warned that extremes were knocking at power’s door. Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s protégé and RN leader, responded that multimillionaire athletes should not lecture people struggling to make ends meet. Now both Le Pen and Bardella are potential presidential candidates for next year’s elections, with polls showing them in a strong position. They remain united in criticizing the national team as a symbol of elite privilege.