This is a recently amended and updated version of a paper read at the Annual conference of ASMCF, held at Leicester University, 31 August–2 September 2000, and later published in C. Rolfe and Y. Rocheron, Shifting frontiers of France and Francophonie (Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 135–148. Is French football still French? Globalisation, national identity, and professional sport as spectacle and commodity Geoff Hare Introduction Philippe Sollers said recently: ȁJe suis un admirateur inconditionnel de Zidane, dȂ“nelka, de Trezeguet. Je bondis quand la France gagne. Pas seulement au football, mais partout et de plus en plus.Ȃ Later in the same article, he says: ȁMon horoscope me donne gagnant. Je suis lȂécrivain français qui gagne. ... Je suis le Zidane de la prose, lȂ“nelka de la phrase, le Trezeguet du paragraphe en or.Ȃ (Sollers 2000: 27). The latter may or may not be rather tongue in cheek, but the initial phrase is interesting on two counts: whereas five years ago or even three years ago, French intellectuals and politically correct public opinion dismissed playing or watching football as a pointless occupation, or even a socially dangerous phenomenon (see for instance Brohm 1992 and Brohm & Perelman 1998), now, following the 1998 World Cup win and the 2000 European Nations Cup win, and the mediatisation of notions of ȁune équipe black-blanc-beurȂ equating to a new vision of France at ease with itself in its modern multi-ethnic, integrated, or multicultural identity, it is impossible to avoid references to football or football metaphors. We see them in all sorts of contexts from the ȁune’ of Paris Match, the inside pages of Le Monde and Le Monde diplomatique to all the TV channels and to articles by Philippe Sollers. And even President Chirac and Prime Minister Jospin seem to feel the need to be seen to take an interest and make informed comments on the merits of playing two or three milieux récupérateurs. Indeed Jacques Attali commented on their TV interviews following the Euro victory: ȁUn président de la République et un Premier ministre rivalisant de banalités joyeuses devant les caméras, le symbole est ravageur, parce quȂil éclaire une terrible véritéDZ lȂhomme politique nȂest plus quȂun spectateur parmi dȂautres dȂune histoire faite par dȂautresDz il ne peut plus faire parler de lui quȂen assistant à leurs triomphes.Ȃ (Attali 2000: 92) Football and nation in France The wider popular impact of football is also clear for example from the result of the Journal du Dimanche-IFOP opinion poll of the Top 50 French people ȁqui comptentȂ. 1 1 Begun in 1988, the poll has been taken 34 times and on every occasion it has been topped by either l’Abbé Pierre (13 times) or Commandant Jacques Cousteau (20 times  he died in 1997). Sondage IFOP for the