Nailed it @Trevornoah. Being French and being proud of African identity is not mutually exclusive. But this debate has treated those things as such. French does not = ethnic French. (1)
The nation is not an ethno-state. The England team is black, brown, mixed, white, working class, Afro-Caribbean and more. This is England and it’s beautiful. (2)
People of African heritage from around the world, including the US, should of course celebrate the success of people of African heritage. That does not mean they are denying their French identity. (3)
If we do not celebrate immigration and diversity, the far right will exploit it. We shouldn’t need a World Cup victory, or Olympic gold medals, or Spider-Man saving a child from a tower block, or a Windrush scandal to do this. (4)
We are so far away from integration, by definition, if the first response to a World Cup victory is a debate about whether the players are African. (5)
If white Europeans want to tell the descendants of colonised peoples what their identity should and shouldn’t be then good effing luck to you. (6)
The debate again demonstrates a total lack of understand about the impact and legacy of colonialism. Both in terms of why there are people of African heritage living in France and why those people may choose to celebrate their African heritage in light of that history. (7)
