‘We all need to fight’: Thuram raises France alarm over

France’s far-right have forced the country to the polls but multiculturalism has driven decades of success on the field

Given the corporate framing, the boards covered in adverts, the heavy Uefa air, it might have came as a surprise to some of those looking on that Marcus Thuram should respond the way he did at a press call in Paderborn on Thursday, prelude to France’s tournament opener against Austria on Monday night in Düsseldorf.

Asked about the rise of far-right politics in France, the prospect of the overtly nationalist National Rally (RN) party taking a majority stake in parliament at the snap elections that will now take place around the quarter-final stage of this tournament, Thuram could have equivocated, looked after himself, hidden behind the professional athlete’s tunnel-vision persona.