Mariano Rajoy, Spain's conservative former prime minister, has rejected calls to apologise for his assertion that the French national football team plays “without French people”, deepening a diplomatic spat that has drawn condemnation from both the Spanish and French governments. In a new opinion column published hours after Spain defeated France in the World Cup semi-final, Rajoy thanked “the authorities for the attention they have paid me during this World Cup” and lamented that “so much effort devoted to praising my virtues has distracted them from other issues that matter to Spaniards”. The article, which made no direct reference to his original remark, was widely interpreted in Madrid as an ironic refusal to retract the statement.

Viewed from Paris, the remarks triggered an unusually sharp rebuke. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described the comments as “stupidity, racism or a combination of both”, while Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou called them evidence of “methodical and banalised hatred”. The French government’s reaction was echoed across the political spectrum, with Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure insisting that “France is not an ethnic country” and Communist leader Fabien Roussel also condemning the statement. The row escalated when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in Paris for France’s National Day, told French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu that he was “very ashamed” of Rajoy’s “xenophobic declarations”.

Rajoy’s column, however, turned the controversy back onto the Sánchez government. He accused the Socialist-led executive of preferring to “snitch to a foreign minister or bow to a prime minister to create noise, distract attention, stir things up — all so that no one talks about what we are living through”. The phrasing, according to analysts in Madrid, is a direct reference to corruption scandals that have weakened Sánchez’s minority administration. Rajoy added: “They never apologise for anything. That, apparently, is always left to others. You already know what I am like and what I think.” The former leader, who was ousted in a 2018 no-confidence vote orchestrated by Sánchez, thus framed the dispute as a domestic political weapon rather than a diplomatic misstep.

The episode has exposed competing conceptions of national identity within European football. In Spain, Sánchez drew a contrast between those who “measure belonging by surname, place of birth or skin colour” and those who value “rootedness in a country and the will to contribute to it”. French officials similarly stressed that the national team reflects a civic, not ethnic, understanding of the republic. Rajoy’s original column, which praised France as “a team of the highest quality” before adding the contested phrase, has not been withdrawn, and no formal apology has been issued. The diplomatic dossier remains open, with no announced next steps from either government, though the exchange is likely to reverberate in domestic Spanish politics as the Sánchez government faces ongoing parliamentary pressure.