The Paraguayan senator who made racist comments about France’s soccer star, Kylian Mbappé, is facing repercussions from her fellow senators.
On Wednesday (July 8), Paraguay’s Senate passed a motion “rejecting” Senator Celeste Amarilla’s “racist and discriminatory” remarks about the 27-year-old French team captain. According to The Athletic, the Senate deliberated for five hours before the majority ruled in favor of the condemnation.
Amarilla began making comments about Mbappé online after the French national team eliminated Paraguay in the World Cup on July 4, advancing to the competition’s quarterfinals. On the platform X, she wrote that Mbappé is a “wcolonised Cameroonian, desperately trying to pass himself off as French,” that he was “brute who had not learned to write,” and that “instead of breast milk, he sucked on coconuts, and the most educated creatures he ever listened to were chimpanzees.”
In her tirade, she also suggested that a player on the Paraguay team should have slapped Mbappé for not shaking his hand after the match ended.
The government of Paraguay issued a statement on Monday, writing that Amarilla’s statements “in no way represent the position of the Government of the Republic of Paraguay or the Paraguayan people.” Senate leader Bachi Nuñez also wrote on his X account, “These comments do not represent the genuine values of Paraguayans.”
According to The Athletic, some senators were in support of Amarilla. One, Lider Amarilla, calling her comments a “naturally expressed disagreement.” Another, Yolanda Paredes, argued that Mbappe was xenophobic against Paraguayans.
Mbappé, born in Paris, France, to a Cameroonian father and an Algerian-French mother, also responded to Amarilla’s comments earlier this week with a statement calling her a “despicable woman” and “unworthy of your position.”
“You do not represent Paraguay, that country which has sweated passion and honour throughout the competition,” he said.
His statement continued, “Through your recklessness and your brazen racism, the entire world has already forgotten the journey and the historic effort that your players accomplished during this World Cup, making way for an incompetent woman who gives the worst possible image of her country. I will never allow people like her the freedom to spread their hatred and racism across the world.“
The French Football Federation has also stepped in, saying they will take legal action against Amarilla.
“I assure our captain, the players, and, more broadly, all victims of such despicable remarks of my full support,” Philippe Diallo, president of the FFF, wrote on X.
