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PARIS: Any football match in France before which the country's national anthem is booed will now be "immediately stopped", French Sports Minister Roslyne Bachelot said Wednesday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The dramatic move followed the booing of "La Marseillaise" during France's 3-1 friendly win over Tunisia at the Stade de France in Paris on Tuesday.
"Any match when our national anthem is whistled will be stopped immediately," Bachelot said after talks with Sarkozy and French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes.
"Government members will immediately leave the arena where our national anthem has been whistled.
"When whistling of our national anthem happens, all friendly games with the country concerned will be suspended for a period yet to be determined by the federation president."
Sarkozy and other leading political figures earlier reacted with shock and anger at the booing and whistling by some in the crowd as the French anthem was played.
Escalettes told reporters he was scandalised and hurt by the affair, which he slammed as "intolerable".
Bernard Laporte, the ministerial secretary of state for sport, told Radio Monte Carlo he would suggest that France no longer play friendlies against North African countries following similar problems in recent years against Algeria and Morocco – like Tunisia, once former colonies of France.
"Let's stop the hypocrisy - let's just stop doing these matches," said Laporte. "We cannot tolerate our Marseillaise being jeered."
Many of the 60,000 crowd on Tuesday were Tunisian. Friendlies against North African sides traditionally attract widespread support from sizeable immigrant communities in and around the French capital.
Some booed when the names of the French players were read out over the PA system before kick-off, reaching a crescendo for Hatem Ben Arfa, born in France to Tunisian parents and who opted to play for the country of his birth despite overtures from the Tunisian Federation.
French Prime Minister François Fillon said the booing was "insulting for France and for the French players" and that in the event of a repeat it would be necessary "to call off matches".
A sports ministry statement Tuesday read: "Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin and Bernard Laporte declare themselves shocked by the jeering tonight at the Stade de France during the football friendly between France and the Tunisian national team, notably during the playing of the Marseillaise, symbol of the French Republic."
Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French far-right National Front, said the jeering was proof of the failure of multiculturalism.
Le Pen said he concluded that as those who jeered the anthem might have French papers but clearly did not identify with France he believed the "integration of foreign masses to our culture is a failure as it is a utopia".
Racism in football has regularly reared its head and earlier this week Spain's Atletico Madrid were handed a two-match Champions League stadium ban for alleged racist insults by its supporters against Marseille players.
But Le Pen believes racism is a one-way street in the eyes of the authorities.
"These scandalous incidents (show) the determination of the sporting authorities to combat racism in stadiums only cuts one way – it doesn't apply to anti-French racism," he charged.
- AFP/so
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