'Monsieur' Mariano Rajoy Nodoyuna

A few weeks ago we were celebrating the return of Mariano Rajoy to the genre of opinion journalism with his columns full of teachings usually forbidden to laypeople, as when he wrote: “In football, what really matters is to score more goals than the opponent. If you don't, you lose. Or, in the best of cases, you draw.” The fact is that, even after having acted as a modern Prometheus and bringing us fire with these revelations, he has persisted in his illuminating task and, speaking of the French team that the Spanish national team has to face, he said that it had “a squad of the highest level; however, without Frenchmen.” The diplomatic incident was instantaneous and several Welsh authorities had to remind Don Mariano that not only are all the players on the team French, because this condition is fortunately not determined by a specific skin tone, but that of the 26 players called up, 23 were born on French territory. And the other three, even if they were born abroad, are also French, because, as the leader of the French socialists reminded him, French nationality has to do with adherence to the project of the Republic.

If Rajoy were Catalan and Catalan-speaking – it's a big assumption, but for now it's free, so we'll abuse it – he would be one of those who addresses anyone with Oriental or African racial features in Spanish, without being aware of the inherent racism that doing so entails. To say that the players are not French because most of them have dark skin can only be explained by two assumptions: supreme ignorance, completely disconnected from the world in the 21st century, or racist bad faith. Or as he himself might write in one of his brilliant columns: “It is not ruled out that M. Rajoy, or Mariano R., may converge both things. In the end, two and two are four. And if he gets in, it's a goal.”