Racist remarks against Mbappé: Paris prosecutor opens investigation into Paraguayan senator

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for aggravated public insult with racist overtones targeting Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla, following remarks made against Kylian Mbappé after the World Cup round-of-16 match between France and Paraguay.

Following the match, Amarilla posted an insulting message targeting the France captain. “This idiot didn’t even learn to write. Instead of nursing mother’s milk, he was nursing coconuts, and the most educated beings he ever heard were chimpanzees,” she wrote, describing the Bondy player as “Cameroonian from colonization.”

In response to this controversy, the French Football Federation (FFF) filed a complaint with the national unit for combating online hate. The public prosecutor confirmed to Agence France-Presse the opening of an investigation “for aggravated public insult by virtue of it being made on account of the origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion, real or supposed, of the victim.”

The alleged offenses are punishable by up to one year in prison and a €45,000 fine under French law. The question of the applicability of French law to a foreign elected official who expressed herself from Paraguay remains open, but the opening of a formal investigation marks a concrete first judicial step in this case.