France reacts to Zidanes head butt

The incident rapidly became a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists and a platform for self-publicists.

SOS Racisme, a French anti-racist body, demanded to know if Materazzi (the recipient of the head-butt) had used a racial insult.

Mehana Mouhou, a French lawyer, said he planned to mount a legal challenge to the result because he thought that Zidane’s red card was issued after officials broke the rules and watched video replays of the incident, which happened in the Italian half while the referee was ending an Italian attack by giving a free kick to France.

The French president, Jacques Chirac, who welcomed the team on Monday, called Zidane a “virtuoso, a genius of world soccer.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, the French intellectual, both blamed and forgave Zidane, for what he saw as an act of rebellion. He was quoted Tuesday in L’Equipe, the French sports daily, as saying that Zidane’s act was the “suicide of a demigod.” He called the butt an “interior revolt” against the “stupid ivory tower in which he had been placed in recent months.”



Jeez this reminds me of the way US sports fans react when a superstar does something stupid. We are the French, and the French are US.