Why do the French pride themselves on a Football player (Zidane) that...

[mysterious]

...isn't even really French? Every time I am in an argument with a supporter of France about the best player ever, they always tell me Zidane.

Zidane is Algerian yet the French take too much pride in someone not even their own.

Why is this?

 

[jyoti]

Representing multicultural France
Since the 1990s, the team has been widely celebrated as an example of the modern multicultural French ideal.[2] On the 2006 French national team, 17 of the 23 players were members of racial minorities, including many of the most prominent players. The team featured players born in France's overseas departments and others who were immigrants or the children of immigrants from former French colonies. Zinédine Zidane is the child of an immigrant couple from Algeria; of the current squad Karim Benzema and Samir Nasri are also of Algerian origin. Vikash Dhorasoo — the first French player of Indian origin - played in the 2006 World Cup. Meanwhile, several players are of African and West Indian origin. Patrick Vieira immigrated as a child from Senegal, Bafétimbi Gomis has dual French-Senegalese nationality, and Claude Makélélé did likewise from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lilian Thuram is from France's overseas department of Guadeloupe. Thierry Henry is the son of parents born in Guadeloupe and Martinique, while Louis Saha, Sylvain Wiltord, and Pascal Chimbonda all have parents who hail from Guadeloupe. Finally, Florent Malouda was born in French Guiana. Moreover, some of the european players are also descendants of immigrants, for instance Mexes, Squillaci, and Mathieu Valbuena are Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish respectively.

The French national football team has long reflected the ethnic diversity of the country. The first african player playing in the national team was Raoul Diagne in 1931, the son of the first African elected to the French National Assembly, Blaise Diagne. In the 1950s, the first French national team reaching international success with a semi-final at the World Cup 1958 already included many sons of immigrants such as Raymond Kopa, Roger Piantoni, Maryan Wisnieski and Bernard Chiarelli. This tradition continued through the 1980s, when such successful players as Michel Platini, Jean Tigana, Luis Fernández, Gérard Janvion, Manuel Amoros or Eric Cantona were all of either foreign-born or overseas-born ancestries.

The multiracial makeup of the team has at times provoked controversy. In recent years, critics on the far right of the French political spectrum have taken issue with the proportional underrepresentation of white Frenchmen on the team. National Front politician Jean-Marie Le Pen protested in 1998 that the Black, Blanc, Beur team that won the World Cup did not look sufficiently French. In 2002, led by Ghanaian-born Marcel Desailly, the French team unanimously publicly appealed to the French voting public to reject the presidential candidacy of Le Pen and instead return President Jacques Chirac to office in a landslide. In 2006, Le Pen also resumed his criticism, charging that coach Raymond Domenech had selected too many black players.

 

[VincentP]

Success attracts fans.

We see it in everything from sports to music to movies to politicians.
The human race has been brought up to celebrate success, that it's the goal in life to work towards.

When someone is successful, people would do anything to claim it as their own, like Zidane for example.

An extreme example of this: When David Beckham had a purported affair with a woman, a newspaper in Malaysia immediately claimed (as headline, no less!) that the woman was born in Malaysia!

Anything for a bit of fame!