'El País' positions itself in favor of Mbappé

BarcelonaJust as last weekend in Spain right-wing people were in favor of Madrid and Formula 1 and left-wingers against it, now the same thing has happened again with the gesture of the Real Madrid stars who did not want to wear the solidarity shirt with Ceuta. While the right-wing press is crucifying them and practically demanding their public stoning, the progressive press has come to the players' rescue. The newspaper El País publishes this Friday an editorial sympathetic to at least one of the players involved, Kylian Mbappé, who is also the only one who has given explanations, in this case to the newspaper As, which, oh surprise, also belongs to the Prisa group. The most curious thing is that when this newspaper published the full interview with the player, it omitted this part.

But let's go back to the beginning. What does El País say about Mbappé? Well, firstly that his gesture, like that of Vinícius and Konaté, was "a respectable and respectful exercise of individual freedom", but then it adds that the players "perhaps did not measure the impact of their gesture well". When it focuses on the French star, it recalls that Mbappé has already positioned himself many times against the far-right and that in this case he wanted to emphasize that solidarity had to be with all "the victims", including migrants, and especially the dead. And it qualifies this position as "valuable" and says it goes beyond a "Manichaean and partisan interpretation of the crisis".

Because, deep down, and here comes the central thesis of the editorial, the far-right is "throwing salt on a live wound to fuel distrust", and that is why the newspaper asks that this episode not be used now to "filter the seed of hatred and division".