Kylian Mbappé and the French national soccer team are dreaming of winning the World Cup for the third time.
For France’s lame-duck president, Emmanuel Macron, it’ll be one final chance to draft off soccer success in a way he’s so far failed to achieve.
“When it comes to football, the president absolutely doesn’t have to force it, he can talk about it for hours,” said Karl Olive, a lawmaker who is close to Macron. “There are few opportunities to unite the population. … It would be nice to have a moment where, opinions aside, we can celebrate.”
The 47-year-old president’s tenure has coincided with one of the most successful periods in the history of men’s soccer in France.
Yet despite repeated attempts to associate himself with the team’s performances — from the rain-soaked, triumphant podium in Moscow in 2018 to the dejected Doha locker room in 2022 — Macron has struggled to convert either soccer glory or any other French sporting success into political rocket fuel.
The 2018 World Cup win was quickly overshadowed by a scandal involving his deputy chief of staff who had assaulted protesters while posing as a police officer weeks earlier, and then the massive Yellow Jackets protests that kicked off that fall. Macron also failed to net a visible popularity boost from the successful 2024 Paris Olympics, which took place while the country was still reeling from his ill-fated decision to dissolve parliament.
A successful 2026 World Cup run for France — it kicks off Tuesday against Senegal in New Jersey — may be Macron’s last opportunity for a mandate-defining positive national moment.
Read Victor Goury-Laffont’s full report from Paris on what soccer means for the president.
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