France-Morocco: match before the match on TikTok
THERE ISOn Wednesday, December 14, when the semi-final match of the World Cup between France and Morocco is played, young people are going around on social networks. For some of the passionate supporters of the Moroccan team, the riots and degradation at the previous match in Brussels were unacceptable and they fear similar outbursts in France.
Others, on the contrary, denounced the accusations of “treason” against them when they thought they would support the French national team.
“You celebrate your joy with hate”
“Every time they get a chance to goof around a bit, they go out and break windows, overturn cars, insult people, take down flags, let them out!” Go do it in these Maghreb countries, you won’t take two steps without being beaten, we are so beautiful here! Ramous, a content creator on social networks, claims in a long tirade in front of the camera.
The video, which has been liked and widely viewed by half a million people, reflects his latest position on the social network. Already in 2018, the YouTuber who denounces being called a “whore” or even a “sellout” encourages, “No more complexities, waving a flag never made you a racist or a fascist and never will.” when he criticized the French team for overstepping certain limits during their victory.
READ ALSOArc de Triomphe: flag of conflictWhile videos of the post-match riots in Brussels abound on TikTok, content creators are also not shying away from outrage at the damage done to the city and the overabundance of fear following the France-Morocco semi-final. “Do you celebrate your joy with hate? […] Regardless of the outcome of the France-Morocco match, what are you going to do here, kick people, throw rubbish, create a ruckus? asks Carmen, a young tiktoker nicknamed @ss.carmen by her many concerned subscribers.
“You break, we take”
After the Morocco-Portugal game, the Brussels police made 59 administrative arrests, according to the Belgian authorities. Hicham, an artist-composer aka @rsl, is a 22-year-old Moroccan who recently settled in the Netherlands via Belgium. A supporter who decided to go to Brussels for the Morocco-Portugal match couldn’t help but film the condition of the streets after the victory of the Moroccan team. In the video, which has been viewed several million times on the TikTok platform, Hicham is angry: “You break it, we take it.”
Hicham, disgusted by the behavior of young Belgians of Moroccan origin who tarnish the image of Moroccans, undertakes to clean the streets full of garbage with his friend. “When Morocco won, we celebrated it as a family, and the majority celebrated normally, they were not thugs or hooligans! Then I saw groups of kids in hoods, I decided to go and smash everything, “said Hicham, who is still amazed. However, proud of his country’s victory against the Portuguese, Hicham believes that these young people hate the Belgians more. “For me, it’s a kind of ” fight against racism’, these little children were born in Belgium and received all the education and all the rights they need to grow up in Belgian society, but they have hatred and they are broken. This is their story with Belgium. But we Moroccans know respect,” said Hicham during the semi-final on Wednesday evening. intends to support his team.
Is supporting the French team a sign of betrayal?
On the eve of the expected semi-final, another debate is heating up the Internet: do we have the right to support the French team without betraying our origin? Responses are divided as videos are posted of young Franco-Africans thinking of supporting France against Morocco. “France gave me more than Morocco, Algeria, everyone”, “we are not sisters, we support not Morocco, but the country where we live”: the statistics of these videos explode, and laughter fills thousands of comments in response to “Flag of France”.
On the controversial TikTok, young Derwan chose to share comments made to him, accusing him of not supporting his “African brothers”. “What made me make this video is that I have friends who are of a dual background like me, who have always grown up in France and do not agree to support the French national team. I decided to make it on TikTok and express my different point of view, but it worked better than I thought,” the 17-year-old still marvels.
Affirming that his parents always taught him to have a critical mind, Dervan mentions that he inherited French values from his mother and is proud of it. “People like to tell me I’m not French because I’m Métis. After the release of the video, they called me a sellout and a traitor for supporting a colonial country,” says Derwan, who nevertheless keeps his distance from critics and is firmly awaiting the results of the match.
