By Staff, Agencies

Former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is facing mounting accusations of racism after claiming in a World Cup newspaper column that the French national football team "does not have any French players."

Rajoy, who was in office from 2011 to 2018, pondered Spain’s looming semi-final showdown with France in an article for the online newspaper El Debate on Friday.

Rajoy praised France's World Cup record and squad strength, saying the team had been performing well and would be a "formidable opponent," before adding that it "doesn’t have any French players."

Rajoy’s remarks, which have drawn comparisons to a Paraguayan senator’s recent racist social media attack on Kylian Mbappé, elicited a scathing response from Spain’s current prime minister.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez rejected the remarks, saying some still judge belonging by surname or skin color, while adding that Spain belongs to "those who love it and work for it, not to those who shame it with xenophobic statements."

Rajoy’s words provoked a furious response in France.

“That’s completely unacceptable,” France’s interior minister, Laurent Nunez, told the French channel BFMTV on Sunday.

“That’s completely not what France is about. France is a country of diversity where everyone can thrive and find their place.”

Olivier Faure, the leader of the French Socialist party, said the French national team was composed only of French citizens.

“France is not an ethnic nation; it has no skin color or religion,” he added in a post on X. “It is a political nation united around the republican motto – much to the chagrin of the racist right.”

Fabien Roussel, the leader of the French Communist party, condemned Rajoy and said his words were reminiscent of the racist tirade from the Paraguayan senator, Celeste Amarilla, who called Mbappé a “colonized Cameroonian, desperately trying to ⁠pass himself off as French”.

Roussel said: “They cannot help but spew filthy racism in an attempt to annoy our beautiful French team.”

Others saw a familiar pattern. “The same racist obsessions and insults resurface every time [France] wins,” said Naima Moutchou, France’s minister for overseas territories.

“These aren’t just ‘slips of the tongue’. It’s a methodical and normalized hatred of France and what it represents.”

Moutchou called on the French football federation, which has already filed a complaint with Paris prosecutors over Amarilla’s remarks, to “pursue all legal avenues”.

Sánchez ended his post on X with a cordial wish: “France, we’ll see you in the semi-finals. May the best team win and may racism lose.”