FRANCE PERSPECTIVE

Paris views the World Cup opening through the prism that obsesses it: what sport reveals about societies. Two threads cross in the French coverage. The first is political and critical: Trump's 'repressive' migration policy is 'already splashing' onto the World Cup, with international supporters, referees and staff denied entry, prompting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to call for 'a deep reckoning.' The shadow of the 'omnipotent president,' unstable and unpredictable, worries FIFA as much as fans who fear he will 'spoil the party.' The second thread is sociological and subtler: the American team itself 'does not look like Trump's America.' The sports sociologist enlisted by the press stresses that the squad is filled with players from recent immigration — Christian Pulisic of Croatian origin, Folarin Balogun of Nigerian origin — offering 'another face' than the MAGA fantasy, amid a 'hunt for migrants.' France adds a field observation absent elsewhere: in Los Angeles and Washington, Mexicans living in the United States experienced the opening in two fan zones of radically opposite moods, 'Californian crowds' versus 'Trump's shadow' in the federal capital. For Paris, the World Cup is less a sporting event than a mirror held up to American contradictions.