The former Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has criticized the government of socialist Pedro Sánchez for “distracting attention” with his words about the French national team and has attacked the “authorities” who prefer to “snitch on a foreign minister” or “bow to a prime minister” to generate “noise.”
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In a new article published in El Debate, owned by the Catholic Association of Propagandists, following Spain’s victory over France that qualifies them for the World Cup final, Rajoy lamented that “so much effort” has been devoted to “praising” their “virtues” instead of “other issues” that “matter to Spaniards” and “are on everyone’s mind.”
“They do not apologize for anything. That, apparently, is always up to others,” he asserted at the end of the column referring to the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who apologized to the French authorities in Paris.
The leader of the Popular Party (PP) has appealed to “good humor” and thanked those who continue reading his writings and greeting him “on the street,” “especially yesterday and today,” in the former prime minister’s first statements after the controversy generated by his claim that in the French national team “there are no French players.”
These words sparked various criticisms from French political leaders, from Marine Le Pen to the French government, labeling his statement as “racist” and “unacceptable.”
Rajoy’s criticisms come after the meeting between the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, this Tuesday on the occasion of France’s National Day, and after the letter from the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, to his counterpart in France to convey that Rajoy’s column does not reflect “the majority sentiment of Spaniards.”
Additionally, the spokesperson minister, Elma Saiz, reproached the former prime minister this Tuesday for not having apologized for his words.
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