Racist Chants: If you live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, His office said that Argentine President Javier Milei landed in Paris on Thursday. He is expected to meet French President Emmanuel Macron there. Tensions between the two countries rose after the Argentine soccer team chanted insulting things about French players after the game.
A short video clip taken earlier this month in Miami during Argentina’s celebrations after winning the Copa America shows happy Argentine players singing a song that is thought to be racist towards French players of African descent. The chorus says, “They play for France, but their parents are from Angola,” and there are some transphobic slurs in it.
In the Instagram live video that midfielder Enzo Fernandez shared, French officials criticised the athletes from Argentina. Fernandez later apologised in public. The “unacceptable racist and discriminatory remarks” were taken to court by the French football federation. Chelsea, Fernandez’s English club, started an internal disciplinary process.
The loud boos and jeers that happened when the Argentine national song was played in Paris were the subject of a headline in the Argentine newspaper Clarín on Thursday.
Last week, the criticism from the football world turned into a political scandal when Victoria Villarruel, Argentina’s conservative vice president, supported Fernandez and the team by saying that Argentina would not stand for criticism from a “colonialist” country.
In a social media post that got a lot of attention, she said that Argentina wasn’t racist because, unlike France, “We never had colonies or second-class citizens.” No one was forced to follow our way of life.
“Enough with pretending to be angry, liars,” she said.
It was a terrible time for French officials in Buenos Aires.
The president, Milei, is a right-wing nationalist who has tried to walk a fine line between appreciating the rise of nationalism that is supporting the Argentina team and trying to avoid a diplomatic backlash. Mili’s harsh words against leaders and support for the far right have already caused diplomatic problems with Brazil and Spain, two of Argentina’s old friends and biggest foreign investors.
The undersecretary of sport, Julio Garro, was fired last week because he asked team leader Lionel Messi to apologise for the chants. Milei’s office said at the time, “No government can tell the Argentine national team, world champion and two-time Copa America champion, what to say, think, or do.”
But recently, Manuel Adorni, the spokesman for the president, has tried to separate Milei from what he called Villarruel’s “personal” and “unfortunate” statements.
He said that the president’s sister and general secretary, Karina Milei, took it upon herself to deny what Villarruel said last week when they met with the French minister.
“It’s a comment that doesn’t show what the government thinks,” Adorni said of Villarruel’s post. “The relationship with France is still strong.”
But the problems only got worse after the men’s soccer game between Argentina and Morocco at the Olympics turned into chaos.
Vice President Villarruel posted video of the event on Wednesday, showing Morocco fans storming the pitch and throwing bottles and other objects at Argentine players in a fit of anger over Argentina’s late goal. This was part of her nationalist rhetoric.
She wrote, “Even though they insult us and whistle our anthem, Argentina is destined for greatness.”
The Argentine presidency said that Milei would meet Macron and other French officials at the Elysee Palace on Friday. He would also go to the opening event of the 2024 Olympics and talk with French business leaders.
The meetings are about investments at the same time that Argentina is trying to get France and the United States, two major IMF shareholders, to help it make a new deal for more funds.
There were “constructive” talks about Milei’s libertarian changes with Argentine Economy Minister Luis Caputo on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, where the G20 finance ministers were meeting. Kristalina Georgieva is the managing director of the IMF.
Georgieva praised Argentina’s work in fighting inflation and cutting the deficit, as she had done in previous months. She wrote on X, “We are committed to support the government’s efforts to turn around the economy for the benefit of the Argentine people.”
But she didn’t say anything about a new loan coming soon for the country that is in a crisis.
Since Argentina owes the IMF the most money, it needs more money to repay the $57 billion it borrowed through the program in 2018.
A lot of people on the right think that Milei is counting on Donald Trump to become president of the U.S., which is the IMF’s biggest stakeholder.
A geopolitical risk company called Horizon Engage’s Americas director, Marcelo J. García, said, “The government thinks that a Trump administration will be better for Milei politically and that it will put some pressure on the IMF by early next year.”
