Silence, Bande de Cretins!
La Marseillaise is one of the most recognizable songs in the world, and is generally considered to be the greatest national anthem ever written. The lyrics recount the struggle during the French Revolution, and are filled with vivid imagery such “May a tainted blood irrigate our furrows.” Now, we French take the sanctity of the French language very seriously, even enacting a law (Loi Toubon) to protect against the infiltration of non-French words into French society. This goes back as far as 1635, when Cardinal Richelieu established L’Academie Francaise to act as the official authority on all matters concerning the French language. So what does all this mean? Like I said, we take the French language very seriously.
Yesterday (Tuesday, October 14th), France played against Tunisia in a friendly. Although the match was played in Paris, at the Stade de France, many of the 60,000 spectators were Tunisian. Given the history of French colonialism, this is not surprising. However, given the context of that history, it should not have come as a shock that many of the Tunisian supporters whistled during the playing of La Marseillaise. In France, as in much of Europe, whistling is extremely derogatory and is considered even more offensive than booing. This has happened before, against Algeria in October 2001 and against Morocco in November 2007 (both friendlies, and both against former French colonies).
This time, the opposing supporters took things even further, whistling at Hatem ben Arfa as he was announced. Ben Arfa was born in France to Tunisian parents, and the Tunisian Football Association spent a great deal of time trying to convince him to play for that national team, which was obviously unsuccessful. While Domenech stated that he was “moved” by the beautiful singing of both national anthems by several franco-tunisian women, he claimed that he simply ignored the negative energy from the crowd.
The rest of France, however, did not. Prime Minister François Fillon called the whistling “insulting for France and the French players”, while Bernard Laporte, the ministerial secretary of state for sport, was quoted as saying that France should no longer play friendly matches against their North African former colonies. After meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, French Sports Minister Roslyne Bachelot stated that in the future any matches at which La Marseillaise was interrupted by poor sportsmanship would be stopped immediately. She went on to state:
“Government members will immediately leave the arena where our national anthem has been whistled.
“When whistling of our antional anthem happens, all friendly games with the country concerned will be suspended for a period yet to be determined by the federation president.”
Unfortunately, Jean-Marie Le Pen also felt the need to open up his yap. The far-right (way far right) mouthpiece declared that the whistling of La Marseillaise was a sign that the multicultural experiment of France is not working. I’ve previously discussed the appelation of the national team as “Les Blacks, Blancs, et Beurs“, a concept of which Le Pen is not fond. Incidents such as those of yesterday simply give this asinine man even more ammunition for his National Front party ramblings. Certainly, the history of French colonialism in North Africa is a painful one (on both sides), and it is understandable that resentment against racism (both state-supported and individual) is present.
But really, how can you boo the greatest national anthem ever written?
To recap:
If you are English and boo Cashley Cole, that is acceptable.
If you are anyone and you disrespect La Marseillaise, we will hunt you down and beat you with a baguette. Or maybe we’ll just take our ball and go home.
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Les Bleus and Sport and Politic and The NY Kid and booing and france.
