Sports experts and specialists could write volumes about the technical performance of the French national team at the football World Cup tournament held in South Africa. The team's performance was an “outrage”, and it brought “shame” and “humiliation” to France, as French newspapers commented in the wake of the national team's elimination from the World Cup. The technical aspects of the team's performance are insufficient to explain its being eliminated at the group stage, in spite of everything that was said about the coach's game plan, his arrogance and his misunderstanding with the players. Indeed, there was such talk about him on the eve of the previous World Cup, and this did not prevent the national team from reaching the final and obtaining second place against Italy, which won the title. Thus, what has changed in “les Bleus” in the past four year must be looked for somewhere else, other than in the technical aspect – especially as the team includes major stars of the football world who have achieved brilliant results in the clubs they play in, both in France and abroad. Yet this time they were not able to translate such skills in the national team, as they did in 1998 when they won the cup. In fact, it seems that the changes witnessed by France since that year hold the answers to the questions surrounding the national team's poor performance. The primary and fundamental condition for any success at sports, especially in football, the world's most popular sport, is absolute moral support at both the official and popular levels. As is well known, the majority of the French national football team's players come from impoverished suburbs of the big cities, and especially from among immigrants of African or Arab Maghreb origins. Those are the suburbs that have been going through mutual misunderstanding with President Nicolas Sarkozy ever since he was Interior Minister. Indeed, the inhabitants of the suburbs have no trust in the President's management, and the President is not fond of those “thugs” (“racaille”), as he referred to them. This negative view of the President is prevalent among most of the national team's players. Furthermore, circumstances have it that the World Cup had come on the eve of French regional elections, during which the government in its electoral campaign reiterated the slogans of the far-right wing regarding the suburbs and immigration. Moreover, the World Cup has come on the background of an ongoing controversy provoked by the government regarding Islamic dress, national identity and integration – a controversy which French people of African Maghreb Arab immigrant origins have interpreted as targeting them, and as indicating that government policy is heading further and further to the right. Thus, the French national team, which had hardly qualified, began its training on the background of a tense political and social situation, as well as that of a deliberate and calculated distance taken from this team by Sarkozy and his administration. There are even some who wonder how such a national team can be called French when it includes more than ten dark-skinned players. The star status of some of the players did not help to lessen the latent grudge against them, and in fact such stardom has turned into a curse for them. Indeed, they are viewed as arrogant and living the life of the newly wealthy, by virtue of the vast amounts of money they earn, with what this entails in terms of depravation in their behavior. This is to the extent that the Minister of Sports in the current government Roselyne Bachelot, who is close to Sarkozy, described those players as being like “street gang leaders” (“caïds”). Moreover, another minister, Rama Yade, who is of African origin and also close to Sarkozy, publicly denounced the outrageous sums being spent to house the players in a South African hotel. This kind of atmosphere issuing from Sarkozy's inner circle reveals the great distance which the President has taken from the national team, based on his ambiguous relationship with the suburbs and with immigrants. Circumstances also have it for an ethical scandal to erupt, reaching some of the stars of the national team. The case is still before the courts, and at least one of them will be convicted for having sexual relations with a minor. Indeed, a few weeks before the start of the World Cup, it was revealed that some of the players were paying for the services of a prostitute. Yet what is most remarkable about the issue is that the girl in question was under the age of eighteen when she began selling such services, and that one player, the game-maker and star of the German Cup, Franck Ribéry, knew that she was a minor when he paid for her services. It is well known that Ribéry converted to Islam some years ago in order to marry his girlfriend, who is of Maghreb Arab origin. He used to, at the end of each game, make sure to salute his beloved wife, and had gained the image of a skilled player and loving husband. The scandal came to do away with the popular image of this star player and with it that of teammates. This has made the players lose their credibility with supporters, as people and as stars, and led some to accept Bachelot's description. Thus, what was once a model of the integration of immigrants into French society twelve years ago, under President Jacques Chirac and his Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, has now turned into a problem at the social and civil levels, under President Sarkozy.
