José Manuel Albares criticizes Rajoy's words as "unacceptable" and demands Alberto Núñez Feijóo to disavow the former Prime Minister

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has also spoken out against the words of former president Mariano Rajoy regarding the origin of the players of the French national football team. In these words, Rajoy states: "The French national football team has a very high level, although, yes, without Frenchmen."

Upon his arrival at the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the European Union in Brussels, Albares assured that Rajoy's words are "absolutely unacceptable" and stressed that they do not represent either the Government or Spanish society. According to him, he has held a conversation with his French counterpart to reiterate the friendship between both countries and disassociate the Executive from those statements. Furthermore, Albares commented: "What Mr. Rajoy wrote is absolutely unacceptable. Nothing that, from near or far, could cover up racism or xenophobia represents Spain."

Albares has not only stopped there, but has also demanded that the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, publicly disavow Mariano Rajoy after writing those words in an opinion column. He also demanded a public rectification from the media outlet that published the article and asked for the text to be removed.

With this controversy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has taken the opportunity to accuse the popular party of maintaining a hostile attitude towards France and has linked this position to other recent criticisms made by the opposition. Specifically, he reproached the PP for the appeal filed against the treaty of friendship between Spain and France and assured that some statements related to the French national team are "very dangerous" and "hurtful". In his opinion, Feijóo's party is positioning itself as an "anti-French" party in the north and "anti-Moroccan" in the south.