So here come the new Pilgrim Fathers, no longer in black hats and silver buckles, but in logo-stamped sneakers and smoked lenses, gliding across the football tarmac like prophets of freedom. They are no longer fleeing religious persecution; they are fleeing boredom, taxation, and perhaps, ultimate horror, the absence of intelligent leaders.

At the front, Jaden Smith, American rapper and composer, son of actor Will Smith and actress Jada Pinkett, self-proclaimed troubadour of PSG, raising his arms as if he had just liberated Lutetia, proclaiming at the end of the match, “we won,” with the enthusiasm of a general on campaign. Artistic director of a house whose name sounds as though it were uttered after a sneeze, “Louboucatin,” intent on redesigning France through an Instagram filter.

At his side, Pharrell Williams, with a cosmic smile and solemn declaration: “I am French.” Thus, nationality becomes a fragrance one spritzes between two chords, a F-sharp or a cashmere-flavored absurdity in the sauce of the Republic.

And then, John Clooney, “What else?”, who becomes French as others adopt a Labrador. Elegantly, of course, he does not colonize, he settles, an imperial nuance. One can already imagine villages transformed into permanent film sets, where even the roosters crow with a faint Californian accent.

In the hushed shadows, John Malkovich has chosen the lichen strategy: discreet, clinging to the Luberon, slowly absorbing the landscape. One wonders whether he is meditating or preparing a play in which the olive trees take the leading role.

But who are these new gilded exiles, really? Refugees of excess, migrants of luxury, pilgrims in search of a very particular absolute: seekers of buttery croissants, sacramental wine tinged with hebephilic nostalgia, or perhaps… the feeling of being elsewhere without quite losing oneself.

For yes, irony of ironies, here they are crossing the Atlantic in reverse, leaving the great dream factory to come and breathe in this battered old country, the land of Descartes who doubts and Rousseau who sighs. As if, in the end, France had become a strange refuge: imperfect, grumbling, yet fiercely alive.

So we watch them arrive, half amused, half suspicious. Are they conquerors? Extended tourists? Or simply human beings in search of a little slowness in a world that has lost its bearings? Perhaps the real question is not “why are they coming?” but rather: what have they seen here that we no longer see?

Meanwhile, in a café, an old man dips his biscuit into his café crème, observes the scene, and murmurs: “More Americans!” Back in 1966, we showed them the door; here they are again. But if they end up learning how to complain properly, we will surely accept them.

FM