Spain\u2019s conservative ex-prime minister Mariano Rajoy faced criticism at home and in France Sunday after saying the neighbouring country\u2019s national football team had \u201cno French players\u201d.<\/p>\n
The comment, published in an opinion piece in Spanish online news site El Debate, came as Spain prepares to face France Tuesday in a blockbuster World Cup semi-final.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s current Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez condemned the remark as \u201cxenophobic\u201d.<\/p>\n
\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
\u201cSpain belongs to those who love it and work for it. Not to those who shame it with xenophobic statements.\u201d<\/p>\n
French politicians have also lashed out at Rajoy\u2019s comment.<\/p>\n
France \u201chas no skin colour or religion\u201d, said French Socialist party leader Olivier Faure on X.<\/p>\n
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told French channel BFMTV that Rajoy\u2019s comment was \u201cabsolutely unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Communist party leader Fabien Roussel compared Rajoy\u2019s comment to widely criticised remarks by Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla, who 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
\u201cThey just can\u2019t stop themselves from slinging this disgusting racism,\u201d said Roussel.<\/p>\n
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
\u201cEvery time Les Bleus win, the same racist obsessions and insults re-emerge,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s conservative ex-prime minister Mariano Rajoy faced criticism at home and in France Sunday after saying the neighbouring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1150,6380,17],"class_list":["post-54206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-international","tag-mna","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54206","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=54206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}