Vice President Victoria Villarruel’s defense of racist chants by Argentine players against their French counterparts created yet another rift among the top authorities of Javier Milei’s government. The presidential spokesman on Friday described Villarruel’s remarks as “an unfortunate comment.” Hours earlier, the president’s sister, Karina Milei, who serves as secretary general of the presidency, had met urgently with the French ambassador in the country to apologize for the case and to point out differences with the vice president’s position. Villarruel was completely and publicly disavowed by her own government.
It all began with the dissemination of a video posted on social media by Argentine national team player Enzo Fernández after winning the Copa América, with racist chants directed at some French players and their African ancestry. Fernández apologized, but the criticism escalated. The French Football Federation filed a complaint and FIFA announced the opening of an investigation.
The vice president reacted with a message full of nationalism. “Argentina is a sovereign and free country. We never had colonies or second-class citizens. We never imposed our way of life on anyone. But we will not tolerate them doing it to us either. Argentina was made with the sweat and courage of the Indians, the Europeans, the Creoles and the blacks.” […] No colonialist country is going to intimidate us with a song from the stadium or for telling the truths that they don’t want to admit. Enough of pretending to be indignant, hypocrites. Enzo, I support you, Messi, thank you for everything! Argentines always with their heads held high! Long live Argentinity,” was the message that Villarruel posted on his social networks on Wednesday night.
Milei is scheduled to travel to Paris next week for the opening of the Olympic Games and hold a bilateral meeting with her French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. After successive controversies with authorities in Spain and Brazil, among many others, a new diplomatic conflict did not seem like the best prelude for the government. “The boss,” as the president calls his sister, began urgent efforts on Thursday to “defuse” any conflict.
Bypassing institutional channels and leaving aside the Foreign Ministry, the Secretary General of the Presidency went to the French Embassy. Karina Milei held a half-hour meeting with Ambassador Romain Nadal and told him that the Vice President’s words did not represent the Government’s position.
The discredit for Villarruel was made explicit by the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni. “The Secretary General of the Presidency effectively went to the French embassy to explain that the unfortunate comment [de Villarruel] “It was a personal matter and it was not the government’s position to mix sports passions with diplomatic issues,” the official said on Friday at his usual press conference. In an attempt to close the matter, he said that “relations with France are intact.”
Until now, hidden by the ruling party, the clashes and tensions between Milei and Villarruel have existed since the current government took office last December. To begin with, the vice president was excluded by Javier and Karina Milei from decision-making in the ministries of Defense and Security, in which she was to have influence, as they had agreed during the electoral campaign. “I did not like it,” Villarruel acknowledged. The vice president was also disavowed when, as head of the Senate, she increased the income of the legislators and her decision was reversed by the president. The last staging of the differences between the two had taken place in Córdoba, two weeks ago, when she was absent from the signing of the so-called Pact of May.
The racist chants by the Argentine national team players ended up being a headache for Milei’s government, locked in ambivalence. When this week the now former Undersecretary of Sports Julio Garro said that Lionel Messi, the team captain, should publicly apologize on behalf of his teammates, the Executive ended up removing him from office. It did so with an official statement that gave absolute truth to any position of the team because it won championships: “No government can tell the Argentine National Team, world champion and two-time champion of America, what to say, what to think or what to do,” was the argument of the President’s Office.
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