France angered by Italy senator's racist soccer slur

ROME, July 11 (Reuters) France has complained to World Cup winner Italy about a right-wing senator's racist comments that the defeated French team was made up of ''blacks, Muslims and communists'', the Italian media reported today.

Racism has already threatened to cloud Italy's victory, with reports that Italian defender Marco Materazzi provoked French star Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, by calling him a ''terrorist''. Materazzi denies making such comments.

There was no such denial from Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League, who lost a ministerial post in a centre-right government earlier this year for wearing a T-shirt with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad offensive to Muslims.

As the victorious Azzurri returned to a heroes' welcome in Rome yesterday, Calderoli celebrated it as a ''political victory'' over a mixed-race French team.

Italy had ''beat a team which, in the quest for results, sacrificed its own identity by selecting blacks, Muslims and communists'', the senator said, in comments that were rejected by members of Italy's new centre-left coalition government.

Italian newspapers La Stampa and Corriere della Sera quoted a letter of protest from French ambassador Yves Aubin de La Messuziere to the Italian Senate, saying: ''Such unacceptable and despicable comments can only foment hatred.'' ''France is proud of a team whose members are all its sons, whatever their origins or religion,'' he wrote, adding that some of the French players insulted by Calderoli played in Italian teams ''where they are very popular''.

REUTERS DH HT1547