On Sunday, December 19, 2022, up to 29 million French fans watched the world cup final match against Argentina. The following day, up to 50,000 fans greeted the French football team on Paris’ famous Place de la Concorde.
Despite the world cup final defeat, the crowd was upbeat and enthusiastic. Unlike national team football players whose facial expressions revealed their disappointment.
For the fans, the French team’s participation in a second World Cup final in a row demonstrated the country’s dominance in world football in recent years. However, the defeat was not easily accepted by the players. After all, every professional footballer’s dream is to win both the World Cup and the UEFA Champions League. This complicates dealing with a final’s loss – psychologically and physically.
Even though it is too early to talk about the next World Cup, which will be held in Canada, the United States, and Mexico in four years, let us focus on the French football team. First, there is Kylian Mbappé, a 23-year-old charismatic leader, who is one of the best footballers in the world and determined to win the World Cup for the second time. Second, the young generation of French footballers appears to be exceptional: Eduardo Camavinga is only 20, Aurélien Tchouanemi 22, Ibrahima Konaté 23, Dayot Upamecano 24, Théo Hernadez 25, and Marcus Thuram 25.
By the next World Cup, they have matured and gained more experience. They already know each other and will play together frequently in the future with the French national team.
Third, at the next World Cup the French football team will be led by a highly experienced coach, either Didier Deschamps or Zinedine Zidane. Both are former World Cup, European Cup, and UEFA Champions League winners. They followed the same path as high-performing coaches, dealing everyday with star players, while producing incredible results.
Combining a charismatic and ambitious leader with a group of talented football players and an excellent coach could allow France to come back and, why not, win the World Cup one day again.
At the same time, as journalists and academics have already stated, football is not just a sport. It could be seen as a widespread social phenomenon with far-reaching implications for society, business, and politics. In addition, the French team’s winning spirit and recent results in various international competitions, in my opinion, reflect a profound change within French society.
For decades, France was dominated by a romantic, almost utopian view of reality. This was the legacy of the May 68 students’ movement, and even the 1871 Paris Commune revolution. France was perceived as a special case, refusing, up to a certain point, even to accept the rest of the world’s evolution.
This could be interpreted as an example of the besieged fortress syndrome. As a result, this country was found in a weaker position, resembling Cervantes’ Don Chicote fighting windmills. How could a country of only 67 million people change the lives and visions of 8 billion people all over the world, who live differently and do not share the same thoughts, culture, and civilizational values?
But all of this relates to the past.The French football national team is a great example of how the French society has evolved to a new set of values. French people love and are proud of their country. Without a doubt. Globalisation and the evolution of our world, on the other hand, are widely accepted.
The goal is not to imagine that they can change the world, but rather to figure out how to play an important role by following new trends. This is what Kylian Mbappé carries out in Paris, Olivier Giroud in Milan, Hugo Lloris in London, Kingsley Koman in Munich, and Eduardo Camavinga in Madrid. Being realistic and hammer away to become international stars far from home.
The new France emerging is of the Mbappé generation. Proud, cosmopolitan, realistic, hardworking, and extremely efficient. Of course, there will always be some opposition to any change. However, the outcome of the conflict between the May 68 generation and the Mbappé’s generation appears to be quite predictable. In a western democracy like France, youth always triumphs, one way or another.
Dr George Tassiopoulos is a Greek French political scientist, with a doctorate in political science from the University of East Paris. He was born in Athens, and has lived in France for the past 20 years where he teaches geopolitics in a business school in Paris.