MADRID/PARIS: Spain has apologized for a column penned by conservative former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy contending that France’s men’s football team lacked French players, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Tuesday.
Albares told his French counterpart that Rajoy’s “intolerable” remarks, which he said “carry the poison of racism and xenophobia,” did not reflect the view of the overwhelming majority of Spaniards. “It’s a very serious matter to go around using skin color to determine who can be a citizen and who cannot,” Albares told Cadena SER radio, hours before Spain and France were to meet in the World Cup semifinals.
Rajoy, who was premier in 2011-2018, wrote in online publication El Debate on Friday that France would be a formidable adversary, before questioning the team’s “Frenchness” in an apparent reference to some players’ African and Afro-Caribbean heritage.
“France has a squad of the very highest calibre. Mind you, there are no French players in it,” he said.
Rajoy could not be immediately reached for comment.
