France are a great movie villain.
You never really beat them; they beat themselves.
Whether Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in the 2006 World Cup final, or the team imploding in South Africa four years later (to the point manager Raymond Domnesh was kidnapped and reading hostage notes), the outcome isn’t in your control. France winning or losing is completely in their hands.
The quarter-final against England and semi-final against Morocco prove perfect encapsulations. Didier Deschamps’ men weren’t spectacular. They weren’t interested in playing great football; they weren’t the best team on the pitch in either of the last two knock-out rounds, but they created enough moments to win both games—and in so doing advanced to their fourth World Cup final.
France are one of the few teams in international football (perhaps the only team) who can beat good to great opponents despite themselves. It’s what makes them villains from a film: To beat them, they must capture you, take you to their secret base inside a dormant volcano, explain their evil plan for world domination in such great detail you could draw a map, then—because of their hubris—you escape through the secret pathway they told you about earlier.
Again, you never really beat them; they beat themselves.
The cause of this ability is simple: the wealth of talent produced by the country is immense—overwhelming to the point of exhaustion. In this World Cup they are missing Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kanté, Boubacar Kamara, Lucas Hernandez, Mike Maignan, Wesley Fofana, Christopher Nkunku, Presnel Kimpembe, and the current Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema.
Those are just the injured. Anthony Martial, Ferland Mendy, Allan Saint-Maximin, Nabil Fekir, Nordi Mukiele, and many more are at the crib chilling. There is another on trial who shall remain nameless.
I’ve heard “an embarrassment of riches” used frequently this month in relation to the France national team. How can one team miss so many players, yet still be good enough to reach the final of a World Cup? They have “an embarrassment of riches.”
That is the talent at Deschamps’ disposal is so vast, in a joking manner it should cause a sense of shame in those who support the national team. How dare they be so wealthy and shameless?
I acknowledge that interpretation is the predominant understanding; but as a man of letters my mind goes elsewhere.
What if we translate the phrase more literally?
If the French team were indeed riches (synonymous with gold, silver, bauxite, or coltan), how are they in France’s possession, and is their being in France’s possession an embarrassment? Not facetiously this time, but in the true sense of the word. Should there be uneasiness or discomfort about France having these would-be riches?
France’s imperial project on the African continent started in the 18th century. Their fingerprints have so smudged the African continent you need a microfibre cloth when reading the history; and any contemporary glance at Francophone Africa will find new smudges.
While serving as Ghana’s first head of state, Kwame Nkrumah published Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965)—a natural successor to Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). Nkrumah outlines how post-colonial Africa is manipulated by “former imperial powers.” The Osagyefo wrote:
In place of colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism we have today neo-colonialism.
The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent—and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system, and thus its political policy, is directed from outside.
The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world.
Coincidentally (do hear the sarcasm through your screen) one year after publishing the book Ghana’s first premier was overthrown in a British-American-backed coup d’état in 1966—chase the footnotes here.
Most French colonies in Africa were given nominal independence in 1960; Algeria being the major exception. Algerians waged seven years of armed conflict against the French before gaining full autonomy in 1962. We highlight Algeria because while each freedom movement is unique, it displays France’s commitment to maintaining their colonial relationship if a colony wanted full autonomy. The Algerian Revolution was the only protracted armed struggle against France during that period of decolonisation.
The French government gave the rest of its African colonies independence, but independence on a leash. France transitioned into neo-colonial rule over its former subjects. Most notably through Ivory Coast’s first President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and his Françafrique policy. At the will of France—Houphouët-Boigny participated in the aforementioned overthrow of Nkrumah and the overthrow of Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara.
In July 1987, Sankara gave a speech at the Organisation of African Unity. The Burkinabè president suggested all African nations strapped with debt should create a united front and refuse to pay the loans incurred them on the basis they were the legacy of colonialism. Being the legacy of a crime, they would be justified in not paying the debt, but Sankara knew the risk—he even made light of it:
I would want our conference to take on the urgent need to plainly say that we cannot repay the debt. Not in a warlike or bellicose spirit—but to prevent us from being individually assassinated.
If Burkina Faso stands alone in refusing to pay, I will not be here for the next conference! But, with everyone’s support, which I need, with the support of everyone we would not have to pay. In doing so, we would devote our meager resources to our own development.
The room laughed, but it was unfortunately prophetic. The 37-year-old was assassinated in the coup of October 1987, orchestrated by France, led by second-in-command Blaise Compaoré, and assisted by Houphouët-Boigny.
No such united front against paying the debt has been successful.
I thought this was about football?
The primary reasons African people leave the continent is the lack of economic stability and the political unrest which causes that instability.
There are arguments for African governments to “do better,” but Nkrumah’s logic tells us there is no such thing as an African government, so long as that government’s politics and policies are controlled by interests from outside. We have African politicians with—to take from Franz Fanon—white masks.
If a family living in a former French colony wants the best for their family, naturally they follow the resources taken from their country to the metropole. If you took gold, diamonds, silver, coltan, and things as seemingly trivial as sand from my country to develop France, why shouldn’t I go as well?
The legacy of French colonialism is such that many footballers who create this wealth of talent exist because their parents or grandparents chased the wealth taken from their home.
Kylian Mbappé doesn’t happen were it not for French imperialism disrupting those living in present-day Algeria and Cameroon, then allowing a fraction of their inhabitants to collect themselves in Parisian suburbs, where by chance his parents met and had a family.
Then comes the reality that footballers must still be made. The resources taken to France are placed in all sectors of society. One of which is football. The Institut national du football de Clairefontaine is no accident.
Due to the nature of gaining their independence, West and Central African nations using their respective CFA francs pour millions of Euros into France’s treasury every year. They deposit 50 percent of their reserves into the French central bank, and must ask French permission to access those funds.
In the meantime, what development projects in France can be done because of where that money lives?
I wonder ironically if newly built cages in the suburbs to discover the next great Diasporic talent are a consequence.
The France national team are a contradiction for me.
I want to see them do well because I know the constitution of their team, and what it represents to so many around the world. At the same time, when I see Emmanuel Macron in the stands smiling, it irks me.
He can’t wait to parade Mbappé and his teammates as face of France, while in the background maintaining his country’s grip around the throat of African politics— which dictates African economies—creating the march of Africans to the Mediterranean Sea in hopes of correctly choosing the makeshift raft that won’t sink.
I get a jolt of happiness when France decide to win. When they decide to implode, I also feel happiness, but it isn’t the same. It feels better, more like joy—maybe more like rebellion. 🎯