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The victory of a multicultural French team against Croatiain Sunday's final in Moscow has reverberated across the globe,being celebrated in France and other places as a triumph fordiversity, while it has fanned racist abuse in some corners.
"Africa won the World Cup," Noah, host of The Daily Show,said in a segment on the late-night television programme thisweek.
"I get it, they have to say it's the French team. But lookat those guys. You don't get that tan by hanging out in thesouth of France, my friends."
Fifteen of the 23-man French World Cup squad have familyorigins in Africa ranging from Cameroon to Congo and Mali,although only two of them were born in Africa and moved toFrance when they were still toddlers.
Noah's comment provoked angry comments in France - wherefar-right politicians have long criticised the national soccerteam for having too many black players - and a rebuke from theFrench ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud.
"By calling them an African team, it seems you are denyingtheir Frenchness. This, even in jest, legitimizes the ideologywhich claims whiteness as the only definition of being French,"Araud wrote in a letter posted on the French embassy's Twitteraccount.
On Wednesday night, Noah fired back at the diplomat.
"When I'm saying 'African' I'm not saying it to exclude themfrom their Frenchness, I'm saying it to include them in myAfrican-ness," he said, after reading the letter on the show.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama had a different take onthe French World Cup victory, saying during a tribute to SouthAfrica's Nelson Mandela that embracing diversity delivered"practical benefits".
"And if you doubt that, just ask the French football teamthat just won the World Cup. Because not all of those folks looklike Gauls to me. But they're French, they're French," he added.
(Reporting by Michel Rose; editing by John Irish, RichardBalmforth) ((michel.rose@thomsonreuters.com; +33149495071; ReutersMessaging: Twitter:
