France’s Colonial Legacy

Race and national origin of the France team members are always a hot topic, because it all comes down to what makes a person “French” and who should be allowed to play for a national team. (Some people get quite snitty about this, but they’re mostly just jealous.)

I found an interesting summary on the blog “Culture of Soccer” last night. It shows the national origins of many of the France team players. I had been thinking about writing up something similar, but it’s always nice when somebody else does your research for you.

One interesting fact: “France was the example most cited in FIFA’s decision to allow players who had only played for the youth teams of one country to turn out for a second country’s full national team. Immediately, teams such as Senegal, Mali, and Ivory Coast saw their ranks swelled by former French youth national team players returning to play for their homelands.”

Another thing I found interesting was that the site doesn’t differentiate between players who were born outside of France and players who were actually born in France to parents who were born elsewhere. To me, as an American, place of birth makes a huge difference, since anybody born here is considered American regardless of where their parents are from. That’s less the case in France.

Here’s the national origin summary from the site. Anything in parentheses is my addition.

Algeria
Zinedine Zidane (born in France)
[also Karim Benzema (born in France)]

Martinique
Eric Abidal (born in France)
Thierry Henry (born in France)
Sylvain Wiltord (born in France)
Louis Saha (born in France)
Nicolas Anelka (born in France)

French Guyana
Mikael Silvestre (born in France)
Florent Malouda

Guadalupe
Lillian Thuram
William Gallas (born in France)

Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire)
Claude Makelele

Senegal
Patrick Vieira
Patrice Evra

Born at Sea (Parents from Angola and Congo)
Rio Antonio Mavuba

Seems like it would almost be easier to write up a list of who DOESN’T have parents born outside the country, eh?