The France players have taken to calling Kylian Mbappe after a former political henchman of Zaire. It derives from a social media meme which jokingly portrays him as the ‘dictator’ of the squad and for some reason, Mobutu Sese Seko’s name stuck.

A scene on the plane back to base after the round of 32 match with Sweden shows Ousmane Dembele looking for Mbappé and calling him by the nickname: ‘Call me Mobut! Mobut! Hey Kylian, come here!’ The French Football Federation put it on their social media channels. It went viral.

The contrast between this squad and the fractious group of 2010 in South Africa, whose fighting was one of the darkest episodes in the nation’s football history, could barely be harder to find. L’Equipe suggested this week that this is the most united group the nation has known at a World Cup.

The disgraceful conduct of Paraguay, France’s round of 16 opponents, and the naked racism which followed that game in New Jersey, has in some ways fortified Les Bleus.

After that opposition’s cynical attempts to cut down France came to nothing, a Paraguayan senator, Celeste Amarilla, described Mbappe as a ‘colonized Cameroonian, pretending to be French – resentful, nouveau riche, arrogant and ugly.’ And that was not the worst of the tirade. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a judicial investigation.

Kylian Mbappe has been jokingly portrayed as the ‘dictator’ of France’s World Cup squad

France’s 2026 World Cup squad might be the most united the international team has ever been

When three French players arrived to speak at the team’s daily press conference, nine miles west of this city on Tuesday, the sense of a side coalescing around the captain was clear.

Sources inside the camp observe that he has garnered respect with his determination to shoot from the hip after New Jersey, where Didier Deschamps asked two members of his team to effectively protect him from injury.

When Paraguayan keeper Orlando Gill attempted to shake Mbappe’s hand at the end of that game, Mbappe deliberately walked past him, shouting ‘vamos’ and repeating some of the insults he’d received that afternoon. L’Equipe was very taken with Joe Hart’s comments on Gary Lineker’s ‘The Rest Is Football’ podcast. ‘I’m delighted he did it. I wouldn’t have shaken hands with any Paraguayan,’ Hart said.

Details have also emerged about the way Ousmane Dembele stood over the penalty spot to prevent the Paraguayans scuffing it up after Desire Doue had earned the team a penalty. There were up to six of them in the penalty box zone, where Dembélé stood unflinching for two minutes, laughing when Paraguay’s Gustavo Velazquez tried to take the ball off him. ‘Where do they think we’re from?’ Dembélé joked with Mbappe.

The technical threat imposed by Mohamed Ouahbi’s Morocco will be far greater, and there is a clear respect from the France squad for the team they beat 2-0 at the semi-final stage in Qatar four years ago. Deschamps has said the North Africans are a better side than back then. Mbappe has a very close friendship with Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi, going back to their time together at PSG.

Mbappe is now being nicknamed ‘Mobutu’ after the former political leader of Zaire

Argentina criticised the appointment of French referee Francois Letexier for their game against Egypt, fostering an ‘us against the world’ mentality within Didier Deschamps World Cup camp

The sense of this being France against the world is compounded by what they view as the deep disrespect the Argentinians showed by criticising the appointment of a French referee, Francois Letexier, for their game against Egypt. An all-Argentinian team of officials will referee the quarter final here.

Mbappe appears ready to act as the deflector shield again. ‘You’re portraying him as a dictator, but Kylian has an image that doesn’t reflect reality at all,’ Deschamps said, earlier in the tournament.

‘When he speaks, he speaks on behalf of the group. He relays the players’ grievances to me, which aren’t always his own. If you want to take care of others, you can’t have problems yourself, and if there’s one player who doesn’t have any problems, it’s Kylian. Everyone follows him.’