Public discourse and the conceptualization of football in France since 1998

Abstract

In a period of just over a decade football has taken on an unprecedentedsignificance in public life in France. In terms of football as both a sportingand economic phenomenon, the French team and French football have, inthis period, notwithstanding notable failures in major tournaments, establishedFrance as a highly significant and influential (if not quite major)footballing nation. At the same time, a turbulent, intense, and complex relationshiphas developed between les Bleus and the French. This period,which is bookended by the neo-republican “multicultural” enthusiasm thatfollowed the 1998 World Cup victory in France and the implosion of theteam in South Africa, has seen football grow in cultural, political, andeconomic importance. In short, it seems that France now talks football inways that it did not before 1998. That is to say, public discourse of variouskinds has been inflected with what Christian Le Bart and Jean-Francois Polocall “l’infinie discutabilite du football.” This article looks at the de...