Word: anthems
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...Just had the National Anthem and now the teams are coming out. Alumni are starting to pour in, students still nowhere to be seen. Probably watching the game at home on NESN right...
...fans born and raised in France. Such booing has come to be used by ethnic-Arab French soccer fans to protest the racial, social and economic discrimination suffered by those not fortunate enough to be among the stars of les Bleus. It's hardly coincidental that previous outbreaks of anthem booing (and resulting expressions of indignation by politicians) occurred before a France-Algeria match in 2001, a France-Morocco game in 2007, and a 2002 French Cup final orchestrated by fans of pro club Bastia, who defiantly played up Corsica's reputation as being France's non-Arab "enemy within...
...Sarkozy was just getting started. Following a virtual crisis meeting between the President and concerned cabinet members, Health and Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin grimly declared the decision had been taken that "any match during which our national anthem is whistled will be stopped immediately". And when that happens during friendly matches, she intoned, such fixtures against "the country concerned will be suspended for a period yet to be determined" - though that risks leaving France with no one to play with should booing suddenly become a pre-game fad here. Worse still: French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie on Wednesday...
...Corsican exception apart, booing France's anthem has become an effective tactic for drawing attention away from the largely black and Arab faces that defend France's honor on the soccer field, and back to the communities from which they come in the decrepit housing projects surrounding the Stade de France and other suburban stadia. On Tuesday night, the protest carried a sharper edge, given the fact that the anthem was being sung by Franco-Tunisian R'n'B artist Laam, whose own childhood was marked by poverty and hardship...
...whistling during the anthem was a form of protest, the perpetrators would have awoken disappointed on Wednesday, as they found themselves subjected to a torrent of outrage. "Those who want to [jeer] a national anthem should be banned from the matches they've come to watch," scolded French Prime Minister François Fillon...