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\n

France united behind Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 on Monday after Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla aimed a volley of abuse at the French striker.<\/p>\n

Amarilla, a senator with the centrist Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), published the posts a day after Paraguay’s elimination to France in a tense round-of-16 World Cup match. She referred to Mbapp\u00e9 as a \u201cbrute,\u201d mocked his intelligence and questioned his French identity, describing him as a \u201ccolonized Cameroonian pretending to be French.\u201d<\/p>\n

French Sports Minister Marina Ferrari called the remarks \u201cabhorrent\u201d and \u201call the more unacceptable\u201d because they came from an elected official. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gr\u00e9goire said that he was \u201cdeeply shocked,\u201d writing on X that \u201cthe France team looks like France, and Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 is one of the greatest representatives of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The abuse directed at Mbapp\u00e9 taps into a decades-old fault line in French public life. France’s national soccer team has long symbolized the country’s ethnic and racial diversity, with many of its biggest stars \u2014 including Mbapp\u00e9, whose father is from Cameroon and mother is of Algerian descent \u2014 coming from immigrant backgrounds. The team’s multicultural makeup has repeatedly become a proxy for broader debates over French identity and immigration particularly after major tournaments.<\/p>\n

While victories have often been celebrated as proof of an inclusive country \u2014 as with the celebrated 1998 Black-Blanc-Beur<\/i> World Cup-winning side \u2014 defeats have occasionally revived racist attacks and questions over whether non-white players are “truly” French.<\/p>\n

French European Affairs Minister Benjamin Haddad also condemned what he called Amarilla\u2019s \u201cunacceptable racist remarks,\u201d saying there could be no tolerance for hatred masquerading as political speech.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 himself lambasted Amarilla. \u201cYou are a despicable woman and unworthy of your position,\u201d he wrote on X late Monday. \u201cYou do not represent Paraguay.\u201d He accused the senator of allowing \u201cbrazen racism\u201d to overshadow Paraguay’s historic World Cup run and vowed never to let \u201cpeople like her\u201d spread hatred unchecked. Blue Light News has contacted Amarilla for comment.<\/p>\n

The French Football Federation announced Monday it would file a criminal complaint. \u201cThe racist comments made by Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla toward Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 are utterly vile and unacceptable,\u201d the federation said in a statement. \u201cThese statements are criminal and condemnable. They must be prosecuted here and everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France united behind Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 on Monday after Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla aimed a volley of abuse at the French striker. Amarilla, a senator with the centrist Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), published the posts a day after Paraguay’s elimination to France in a tense round-of-16 World Cup match. She referred to Mbapp\u00e9 as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}