Will Emmanuel Macron turn Kylian Mbappé’s club career upside down? While the player refuses to extend his contract in the capital beyond the summer of 2024, fueling speculation about a possible transfer, the Head of State affirmed, on Wednesday June 14, his intention to “try to push so that it [there] stays”. Asked, Thursday, at a press conference, about the possible influence of Emmanuel Macron on his career, Kylian Mbappé, who shows his wish to stay, whatever happens, at PSG next year, replied that ” today, June 2023,” he had none. Already, last year, he had intervened to persuade the native of Bondy, courted by Real Madrid, to stretch his lease at PSG, which he had done.
The day after the France-Gibraltar match, won easily by the Blues, journalist Mohamed Bouhafsi, author of the documentary Les Bleus et l’Élysée (2022), deciphers the relationship of Emmanuel Macron and his predecessors to French football.
Le Point: Emmanuel Macron is not the first president of the Fifth Republic to present himself as a promoter of French football…
Mohamed Bouhafsi: Equal with Nicolas Sarkozy, and ahead of François Hollande, he is the biggest football fan of the presidents of the Fifth Republic. For him, before being a political object, it is first and foremost a childhood passion, especially when it comes to OM.
When did this prominence of football by heads of state date back to?
It was the mandates of Jacques Chirac that marked a turning point. Previously, Georges Pompidou or Valéry Giscard d’Estaing mainly knew France which loses… François Mitterrand, he played football in his youth, but he secretly read the articles of L’Équipe. At the time, it was better to highlight literature and cinema. Jacuqes Chirac makes football a political object. Even before the 1998 World Cup, he identified with coach Aimé Jacquet, who was targeted by critics. When, after the victory, he gives her the Legion of Honor, he slips her “Mort aux idiots”…
With his exceptional flair, he felt that the French were beginning to like this team. He confided in private to relatives that the best results of his seven-year term (1995-2002) were the sporting victories of the French team: World Cup 1998, Euro 2000. When, in 2006, Zinedine Zidane gave his famous “headbutt” to Marco Materazzi for his last international match, the Head of State pushes for an exceptional farewell to take place at Place de la Concorde.
Still, the identity of Kylian Mbappé’s next club may seem like a secondary subject… Isn’t presidential interventionism the cover of public impotence?
Beyond the attachment for this sport, the hyper-presidency is explained by the absence of great federation leaders. As for sports ministers, presidents sometimes appoint personalities who are not up to the task, precisely because they want to preempt the subject… In 2010, faced with the financial crisis, Nicolas Sarkozy seeks to show that he still has the hand.
Regarding Emmanuel Macron and Kylian Mbappé, the situation is different. When the question of a transfer from Mbappé to Real Madrid arises, in 2022, the president simply says he prefers to see him continue his career in our championship. But be careful, he didn’t take his red phone… He didn’t play a decisive role in the player’s choice to stay in Paris, as the person himself claimed at the time.
Is the closeness between Emmanuel Macron and Kylian Mbappé real?
On both sides there is a desire to have good relations. Kylian Mbappé speaks of the president with respect. But he takes a more distanced look at politics than Zinedine Zidane, who felt immense pride at the idea of ??being alongside Jacques Chirac. Sometimes it seems that they have continuous relationships, when they are very far apart. They don’t text each other at 10 p.m. I don’t think Emmanuel Macron is making Mbappé a political object. Rather, he knows that the France team is a national pride that must be followed carefully, because it belongs to all French people. What he is doing now, Chirac, Sarkozy or Hollande could have done. It’s more like chauvinism, a bit like the principal of a school who wants to keep his best student.
Who is the president who has instrumentalized football the most?
I would say Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2010, after the Knysna affair [in solidarity with their teammate Nicolas Anelka, expelled from the group for having made insulting remarks towards coach Raymond Domenech, the group refuses to participate in training in the middle of the World Cup, editor’s note], he summons Thierry Henry to the Élysée to ask him for an explanation. He then leaves his role as president to take on that of coach. Deep down, Emmanuel Macron’s relationship with Les Bleus, like that of Jacques Chirac, is almost childish: it’s the team he saw play as a child. He behaves like a twenty-fourth man, a big brother as Olivier Giroud said in the documentary. When, at the end of France-Argentina [defeat in the final of France during the 2022 World Cup, editor’s note], he comes to console the players, he behaves as after a victory. In moments of defeat, each president is accused of instrumentalization.
