Have it in French: “je supporte la France mais la France m’insupporte”

Grégory Pierrot, talking about his French identity, and what it can mean to be French, on Africa is a Country:

France’s history of slavery and colonialism is long and vile, and France has a long record of silencing it. But it lives in these bodies on Russian soccer fields and in those we only catch glimpses of when cameras cut to crowd scenes in those Parisian suburbs most of the players grew up in. And we know in moments like these, on the greatest stage in the world, we can make France look better than it is, we can make it look like it actually delivers on promises it tramples under feet on the daily. No one knows France like we do. No one is France like we are.

Such a great read.

This would go very well with the lyrics of the French singer Bernard Lavillier, when he mentions his city of Saint-Étienne (the city I was born in) — lyrics that always sounded very accurate to me:

On n’est pas d’un pays, mais on est d’une ville — One is not from a country, one is from a city.