. What was symbolised in that moment of hope and glory was 'the reconciliation of a modern nation state with its past, and the celebration of a new multicultural nation . . . at ease with its make-up,' says Cathal Kilcline,){kind=link}
Twenty-five years ago, France was host and witness to one of the most transcendent of sporting triumphs. The victory of the men’s football team in the 1998 World Cup drew its immense symbolic power from the confluence of several factors: a fevered political background in which the Front National was on the rise; the disenfranchisement and under-representation of the banlieues, the working-class city suburbs with large immigrant communities; and the racial diversity of the team, famously nicknamed the “Black, Blanc, Beur” (black, white, Arab).
What was symbolised in that moment of hope and glory was “the reconciliation of a modern nation state with its past, and the celebration of a new multicultural nation . . . at ease with its make-up,” says Cathal Kilcline,
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