Les banlieues and Les Bleus : Political and media discourse about sport and society in France

Abstract

Focusing on the French national football team during the period 1998–2013, this article will trace the evolution of political and media discourses about sport and society in France. It will analyse how the team, and its relationship to France’s banlieues and French society as a whole, has been perceived by journalists, politicians, public intellectuals and sociologists after both notable successes and significant failures. Although the World Cup victory of 1998 and spectacular failure at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 may initially seem to occupy different ends of a spectrum, it will be argued that there are also important continuities in the period 1998–2013 that illuminate the study of relations between sport, media, and the political and intellectual elites in France.