Spain's former conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy has faced a storm of criticism at home and in neighboring France after claiming the French national football team has 'no French players'.

The comment appeared in an opinion piece in Spanish online news site El Debate on Sunday, as Spain prepared to face France in a titanic World Cup semifinal on Tuesday.

Spain's current Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez condemned the remark as 'xenophobic'. 'There are those who still measure belonging by surname, place of birth, or skin colour. Others measure it by our roots in a country and our will to contribute to it,' the Socialist leader wrote on X.

Transport Minister Oscar Puente dismissed Rajoy as a 'post-Franco idiot'. French politicians also lashed out. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told BFMTV it was 'absolutely unacceptable'.

Communist party leader Fabien Roussel compared Rajoy's comment to widely criticized remarks by Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla, who called Kylian Mbappe a 'colonised Cameroonian who has really pretended to be French'.

Anti-discrimination minister Aurore Berge denounced the 'repeated racist outbursts'. 'It's time they stopped and that sport becomes sport again: a place where you are judged on your talent and by no other criteria,' she said.

France's overseas territories minister Naima Moutchou called the comments evidence of 'systematic and widespread hatred of France and what the nation is'. The French embassy in Madrid also responded, stating all players are French.

French Football Federation president Philippe Diallo posted that Rajoy's comments carried an 'intolerable undertone of racism'.

Source: www.aljazeera.com