Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, July 9, 2018

Diversity is strength and immigration a blessing for the French Republic. Just look at the World Cup results. France’s heavily non-white team has been championed by Ed Aarons in the Guardian, Afshin Molavi in the Washington Post, and Antoinette Muller at the Daily Maverick as a multi-racial success. They’re hardly alone — the UK Independent called the upcoming polyglot Belgium/France matchup nothing less than a “celebration of immigration.” “Nativists” beware: If it weren’t for immigrant soccer players, neither France nor Belgium would have a chance in the World Cup.

This happy talk is in sad contrast with what’s happening back in the Republic. Last week, a French police officer in the western city of Nantes fatally shot one Aboubakar Fofana after a traffic stop. Initially, the officer said he fired to save the lives of others. However, under interrogation, he admitted his gun went off accidentally as he struggled with Fofana. The officer has been charged with manslaughter.

There were four days of riots. Even the New York Times called it a “familiar replay of grim media images . . . in France, where law enforcement tactics in immigrant neighborhoods are a regular source of friction.” According to the Times, the late Monsieur Aboubakar “had at least eight previous encounters with the police and . . . had an outstanding arrest warrant on a robbery charge.” Even if the officer made a mistake, constant interactions with criminals combined with large, resentful foreign populations that always take the criminals’ side make riots a regular feature of French life.

Often, they barely make the news. Two months ago, the “deprived Mirail neighborhood” in Toulouse exploded after police detained a woman for illegally wearing a head-to-toe Islamic veil. Burning hundreds of cars every New Year’s Eve in has become a tradition in the French suburbs, where non-whites concentrate. This year, violence was especially bad; several French officers were actually assaulted on camera. And then there are the annual May Day riots by anarchists, who want open borders.

Conflict between police and non-whites grinds on. A typical article in the Guardian explains why: the “hopelessness of a generation of young people stuck in dismal suburbs, marginalised and jobless because of their address, skin colour or their parents’ immigrant origins.” Yet France takes an approach even more integrationist and assimilationist than the United States. The word “race” was recently removed from the French constitution (because there is supposedly no such thing), French language and culture are heavily pushed in public schools, and the government bans the collection of any kind of racial data. France’s approach has failed as thoroughly as Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism, suggesting that tensions are not a failure of policy, but the inevitable consequence of “diversity.”

France’s soccer success was supposed to make up for this predictable social failure. In a recent video, Vox states, “Despite racist criticism, players from immigrant families have continued to make up more and more of France’s best talent.” The video notes that many of these players are from the banlieues, the immigrant-dominated suburbs that have “frequently seen riots,” and have “high levels of unemployment, crime and poverty.” “Yet the banlieues,” the narrator notes cheerfully, “continue to produce some of the most talented soccer players.” The City of Light is becoming a Third-World disaster — but look how well these Arabs can kick a ball!

France already tried to use soccer to sell multiracialism. The French national team, Les Bleus, won the World Cup in 1998, an event celebrated by the media as a victory for diversity. Since then, racial tensions have only grown, to the chagrin of journalists. In 2002, CNN’s Simon Hooper, in an article noting the strong electoral performance of Jean-Marie Le Pen, worried that the National Front’s continuing support had “shattered the hope that football could be a panacea for France’s troubled race relations.”

How could anyone have thought soccer could be a “panacea” for a problem that has no solution? And, as racial tensions rise, soccer may not even be a diversion, much less a solution. This year, as African and South American teams were knocked out of the tournament, their fans turned against the “colonizers.”

Because 1. They had to finish their unfinished business from the last World Cup and 2. THEY WERE THE ONLY LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRY LEFT. Fuck dese colonizers (e.g: France, England, etc) — Liz, pls. (@_elimayyy) July 6, 2018

I’ve noticed some of my Vietnamese Americans brothas n sistas cheering for France in the World Cup. That’s equally equivalent to Americans cheering for England. #colonizers — Lawrence Nguyen (@LawNguyen) July 6, 2018

If we end up with a france versus england final I am going to lose my shit – nobody needs a battle of the colonizers #WorldCup #WorldCup2018 — 🇧🇪 (@lamisosoup_) July 6, 2018

At the same time, some are promoting the French team because it is African.

My latest in ESPN – ‘Whether nativists, racists and the Marine Le Pens in #France like it or not, much of the world views France as the last African team standing in Russia, demonstrating brown and black excellence in all of its glory.’ #WorldCuphttps://t.co/XhHYfZiGAN — Khaled Beydoun (@KhaledBeydoun) July 4, 2018

France, with 12 of its 23 players having African ancestry, is the #WorldCup’s last-standing “African” team.https://t.co/26ZjrFcoYq — The Undefeated (@TheUndefeated) July 6, 2018

France is the only African team left in the world cup . I wonder how anti-immigration French patriots feel about the fact that the vast majority of the French team is composed of Africans . — Mohammed Hijab (@mohammed_hijab) July 2, 2018

Patriotic Frenchmen who want to root for “their” team are being hit from both sides. Non-whites boast that the team is African, not French. At the same time, it is still technically the French team, so it’s a symbol of racism and colonialism. Like white Americans, the French aren’t allowed to have a team — or anything else — of their own.

The frothing over the French team shows how desperate mass immigration’s supporters are for anything like good news. No one really seems to believe a World Cup championship will calm the suburbs, and French nationalists are organizing on an unprecedented level. Yet many journalists are implicitly telling readers that despite constant riots, conflict, and crime, mass immigration is wonderful because it helps France win soccer games.

We can only laugh at this silly rationale for national self-immolation. When it comes to the game of diversity, the only way to win is not to play.