The French far-right is desperately seeking to poison the atmosphere on the eve of the national football team’s match against its Argentine counterpart in Kansas City, USA, by inciting the French police to confront any celebrations that may come from Algerian fans, should the Algerian team overcome its Argentine counterpart.
Julien Odoul, the deputy and official spokesperson for the “National Rally” party, founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, stood out by addressing a question to the Minister of Interior, Laurent Nuñez, warning him of his services’ inability to confront the anticipated celebrations of Algerian fans in French streets, which, as he claimed, always end in violence.
The far-right politician inquired in a written question addressed to the Minister of Interior about “the state’s clear inability to guarantee the safety of law enforcement officers during public gatherings, the transformation of every major sporting event into a platform for deliberate violence against the Republic, and the absence of a serious operational response ten days before the start of the 2026 World Cup.”
The right-wing deputy also wonders in the question, which “Echorouk” reviewed, about “the concrete and proactive measures” that will be taken in Algeria’s matches, whose participation in international competitions, in each edition, results in “more numerous and violent disturbances than the previous one, or will the government once again prefer to feign surprise at what the French people have become accustomed to expecting,” as he claimed.
The same deputy had also addressed an identical question to the French Minister of Interior on December 16th, on the eve of the start of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament held in Morocco, in which Algeria participated.
He then inquired with the government about “the measures planned to prevent any public disturbances that might occur during the Algerian team’s matches,” and also claimed in the same question that it is the Algerian team’s fans who “cause chaos in France after their matches, especially if they win. There is no other African team, such as Senegal, Cameroon, or Mali, for example, that causes such excesses, violence, and provocations against the republican order.”
This question remained unanswered for more than six months, and so it returned again on the occasion of the national team’s participation in the World Cup, with another written question also addressed to the Minister of Interior. What was remarkable was his abandonment of targeting only the national football team’s fans, but rather adding fans from other Maghreb countries, in an attempt to generalize his racism, by talking about countries other than Algeria.
In line with this, he wondered about “the concrete and proactive measures that will be taken” for the matches of the Algerian, Moroccan, and French teams, whose participation in international competitions, in each edition, results in “more numerous and violent disturbances than the previous one, or will the government once again prefer to feign surprise in the face of what the French have long known to be a completely expected matter,” considering the increase in the number of detainees in such cases as a justification for escalation with members of the Algerian community and other Maghreb communities.
This provocative discussion is not new, but dates back years, specifically to 2019, when Algeria won the Africa Cup of Nations in Cairo. The French far-right was annoyed by the tens of thousands of Algerian community members in France celebrating in massive gatherings, carrying national flags.
These scenes occupied the “platforms,” and politicians demanded a ban on raising Algerian flags on French soil, while others demanded a ban on Algerian fans from reaching the “Champs-Élysées” in the heart of Paris, in a dangerous precedent that was considered at the time a denial of France’s values of freedom and human rights.
