We cannot let our country fall into the hands of the extreme right, said Kylian Mbappé at the press conference, putting his mask in French colors on his face. Perhaps even the Gallic rooster was embroidered on it. This is how he wanted to play, with a broken nose, so that millions of TV viewers could see his national commitment. "I want to wear the French shirt with pride, he continued, I don't want to play for a country that doesn't represent my values."
UEFA reprimanded the French soccer star and only allowed him to wear a neutral-colored protective mask on the pitch. There is a rule for this, it must be followed! There is also a rule to avoid political agitation, but
the authorities could not decide whether Mbappé was agitating or just speaking his private opinion to the cameras, because he has the right to do so.
Therefore, even after the first round of the election, he was free to call on his compatriots in front of the football public to go to the polls representing values similar to his and vote against the National Compact that wants to divide France.
Mbappé is a world star, has forty million followers on social networks, and is an influencer at his best. They watch what he eats, what he drinks, what he says. He sets an example with his behavior and stimulates action with his words. He is an intelligent player, he must be aware that appearing and speaking in public is a responsibility.
Mbappé is a soccer player with a French identity, born to a Cameroonian father and an Algerian mother.
Algeria was French until 1963, Cameroon was a German colony from the Bismarck expansion until the end of the First World War. At that time, the just peace treaty gave one half of the country to the British and the other half to the French, and the French pursued the same colonial policy in Cameroon as the Germans before them, the African version of forced labor. The colonial world ended in the 1960s, the more educated and enterprising part of the natives chose a European life: Mbappé's ancestors are French. This is how the golden-legged boy born near Paris became a real Frenchman. The new French identity is clearly visible on it, just like on the entire national team. With their hands on their hearts, they enthusiastically sing the Marsailles,
but I wonder what they can think of “Come on, take up arms! Your country calls you to battle today! Just come, just come, water it, their ugly blood is the limit!” at your lines?
Forty percent of France's 68 million inhabitants are immigrants, but according to official statistics, the proportion of French people is 84 percent. The fate of the Mbappé family helps to unravel the contradiction, because anyone who is a French citizen is considered French regardless of skin color, religion or culture. They are not enriching the ranks of the National Compact. Instead of the nation, they are the people, they are – at least they think – represented by the New Left People's Front called to fight, which sounds suspicious to our Hungarian ears. The haughty French and Germans could listen for once to the Hungarian historical experiences, which popular wisdom has turned into a proverb:
"Give the pond a place to stay and it will get it out of the house!"
The sharing at the end of the first Great War also reminds me of this. In 1500, only one hundred thousand Romanians lived in Transylvania, in 1918 there were already three million. As a result of continuous migration, resettlement and migration over the centuries, more than half of the population of Transylvania became Romanian. In Gyulafehérvár, on December 1, 1918, the Transylvanian Romanian delegates unanimously voted that Transylvania would henceforth enrich the territory of Greater Romania. Unanimously, because no one asked the native Transylvanian Hungarians. The Transylvanian Saxons were asked, and they chose Romania. As Romanian citizens, they could immediately say goodbye to their privileges, which in 1224 II. It was given to them by the Hungarian king András, and this seven-hundred-year-old privilege was never disturbed by the Hungarian king or Hungarian prince. On the instructions of the Hungarian government, MÁV provided Romanians with free special trains to get to the event venue in Gyulafehérvár, because in reality the nationalities living in the Kingdom of Hungary had the right to democratic self-determination.
In France, the Popular Front mobilization bore fruit. Although in the first round of the elections - with the exception of Paris - the whole of Gaul swam in national dark blue, in the second round this order was overturned, the country became colorful, the motley cabal won, and they even dragged Macron's renaissance with them.
Ten million French-French people voted for the National Consolidation, the New French - perhaps listening to Mbappé's call - pulled the plug on the popular front "representing their interests". Even so, there were only seven million of them, but the democratic French electoral system gave them thirty-seven more mandates than the far-right National Compaction.
Between the two election rounds, the French public prosecutor's office launched an investigation against Marine Le Pen. Right now, during the election, the neutral prosecutor's office believes that the party chairperson in the presidential election in 2022 probably exceeded the campaign expenses allowed by law. He's not the only one like that, but he's been found randomly, of course. In addition, he is also accused of embezzlement of European Union funds, because the assistants of the party's MEPs were not paid properly.
If the suspicion is confirmed, Le Pen could be sentenced to up to ten years in prison and banned from running for president again. The French rule of law may have been frightened,
because according to recent poll data, Le Pen has a good chance of running in the presidential election due in two years, and may even achieve a result of over fifty percent in the first round. And then the discolored French folk world can turn national again.
The Tarkabal People's Front is mobilizing for the time being by protesting against the "extreme right". It is a question of when the New French people, now 40 percent of whom have an immigrant background, will get bored of this and decide to take their fate into their own hands and assert their own interests instead of the People's Front.
The author is a historian
Source: Magyar Hírlap
Cover image: Photo: Équipe de France de Football Facebook
