{"id":54178,"date":"2026-07-12T20:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/54178\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T20:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:29:11","slug":"former-spain-pm-criticised-for-xenophobic-remark-on-french-world-cup-team-world-cup-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/54178\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Spain PM criticised for \u2018xenophobic\u2019 remark on French World Cup team | World Cup 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Mariano Rajoy has drawn criticism for an opinion piece in Spanish website El Debate ahead of World Cup semifinal.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 12 Jul 202612 Jul 2026<\/p>\n<p>Spain\u2019s conservative former prime minister Mariano Rajoy is facing criticism at home and in neighbouring France after saying their national football team had \u201cno French players\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The comment, published in an opinion piece in Spanish online news site El Debate on Sunday, came as Spain prepares to face France in a titanic World Cup semifinal on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>Spain\u2019s current Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, condemned the remark as \u201cxenophobic\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are those who still measure belonging by surname, place of birth, or skin colour. Others measure it by our roots in a country and our will to contribute to it,\u201d the Socialist leader wrote on X.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpain belongs to those who love it and work for it. Not to those who shame it with xenophobic statements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Transport Minister Oscar Puente dismissed Rajoy as a \u201cpost-Franco idiot\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>French politicians have also lashed out at Rajoy\u2019s comment.<\/p>\n<p>Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told French channel BFMTV that it was \u201cabsolutely unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4764438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2026-07-09T200145Z_585448609_UP1EM791JMW95_RTRMADP_3_SOCCER-WORLDCUP-FRA-MAR-1783885490.jpg\" alt=\"France players pose for a team group photo before the match\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>The France team are favourites to win the World Cup [Paul Childs\/Reuters]<\/p>\n<p>Communist party leader Fabien Roussel compared Rajoy\u2019s comment to widely criticised remarks by Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla. She said after Paraguay\u2019s elimination by France in the Round of 16 that star player Kylian Mbappe was a \u201ccolonised Cameroonian who has really pretended to be French\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey just can\u2019t stop themselves from slinging this disgusting racism,\u201d said Roussel.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-discrimination minister Aurore Berge also denounced the \u201crepeated racist outbursts\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s time they stopped and that sport becomes sport again: a place where you are judged on your talent and by no other criteria,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Naima Moutchou, France\u2019s minister for overseas territories, called the comments evidence of \u201csystematic and widespread hatred of France and what the nation is\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery time Les Bleus win, the same racist obsessions and insults re-emerge,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>France \u201chas no skin colour or religion\u201d, said French Socialist party leader Olivier Faure on X.<\/p>\n<p>France\u2019s embassy in Madrid also responded in a social media post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the players of the French team are French. Of 26 players, 23 were born in France. The three who were born abroad are also French.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Philippe Diallo, president of the French Football Federation, posted that Rajoy\u2019s comments carried an \u201cintolerable undertone of racism\u201d..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mariano Rajoy has drawn criticism for an opinion piece in Spanish website El Debate ahead of World Cup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[66,313,556,273,6857,17,314,26,1180,3003],"class_list":["post-54178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-europe","tag-football","tag-france","tag-news","tag-racism","tag-spain","tag-sport","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}