PARIS, 13 May — A furious President Jacques Chirac delayed the kick-off of the French cup final for 20 minutes at the weekend to protest against the jeering of the French national anthem by Corsican football fans.
As the teams lined up and the Marseillaise was played five minutes before the game was due to begin, President Chirac heard the Bastia fans, packed into the south end of the Stade de France, whistling insultingly at the French anthem.
He turned to the president of the French football federation, Claude Simonet, who was sitting beside him, and said: "They’re whistling. I’m going." The president stalked off to the VIP suite and the teams — Bastia from Corsica and Lorient from Brittany — had to return to the dressing rooms.
The former prime minister, Lionel Jospin, was widely criticized for failing to react last October when French youths of Algerian origin booed and whistled at the French anthem before a France-Algeria friendly international.
Having just won a highly-charged, presidential election against the nationalist far right, and facing difficult parliamentary elections in five weeks’ time, President Chirac was not going to make the same mistake. He refused to go back to his seat until the president of the football federation, Simonet, and the president of Sporting Club de Bastia, François Nicolai, had made loudspeaker announcements apologizing to the French people and appealing for "respect".
Finally, he resumed his place and the Saturday evening game kicked off 20 minutes late. Lorient won 1-0.
President Chirac’s actions were warmly commended by the French press yesterday. "A week after being elected as the standard-bearer of the values of national unity, the head of state could not let such an insult go unnoticed," said the Journal du Dimanche. "By leaving his place in the stand, he did what Lionel Jospin and (the former sports minister) Marie-George Buffet, should have done last Autumn."
The Bastia fans were demonstrating a widespread feeling of Corsican disaffection from the French state. Although only a minority of Corsicans say that they want outright independence, there is majority support on the Mediterranean island for some form of autonomy.
As prime minister, Jospin had promoted negotiations on separate legislative powers for the island but this process died with his defeat in the first round of the presidential elections last month.
The Lorient fans, packed into the other end of the Stade de France, also come from a region where there is some separatist feeling and a minority movement for independence from France. However, the Breton fans showed their disapproval of the whistling of the Marseillaise by giving a storming rendition of the anthem when the teams came back onto the pitch. (The Independent)
