In the Paris region, western France and the French Alps, local initiatives are springing up to help young migrants, many of them unaccompanied minors, to get involved in football to help them integrate and find their feet in their new country. These projects are similar to a much-larger initiative that began in Germany in 2015 when that country took in nearly one million refugees. But as Mickaël Correia reports, the sport's ruling body in France - the French Football Federation - is doing nothing to help the process.
No French authority, and notably no court of law, could allow a selection process among citizens based on their foreign origins, their skin colour or the religion they practice. That is key to understanding the importance of Mediapart's exclusive revelations of how the country's football chiefs hatched secret plans for a discriminatory selection of young players. Mediapart Editor-in-Chief Edwy Plenel argues here why this sorry affair, the demonstration of an alarming loss of values, offers a wakeup call for French society.
Members of the French Football Federation's National Technical Board, including the France team coach Laurent Blanc (pictured), have secretly elaborated a plan to impose quotas on the number of young black players and those of North African origin among the country's youth training centres which groom potential candidates for the national team, Mediapart can reveal in this exclusive investigation.
Laurent Blanc. © (Reuters)