Céline remembers that day perfectly as if it were yesterday, she says it stayed engraved in her memory: "I have had many students over these more than 10 years, hundreds and hundreds, but I remember him perfectly: I don't know what he said or did, but that first day of class, I remember he looked at me with those big curious eyes he has, and then I asked him, 'And what's your name?' and he replied, 'My name is Kylian'."
That nine-year-old child Céline had in front of her was Kylian Mbappé (Bondy, 1998), today a mega-star of Real Madrid, and had just joined her group of students at the Bondy conservatory, north of Paris. He was learning to play the flute with another teacher, Françoise Ducos, and taking solfeggio classes with Céline Bognini. Some people make a lot of noise but leave no trace. Others only need a silent look to make an impression: "There was something extraordinary about him, in the strict sense of the word 'extra' and 'ordinary', he had something out of the ordinary," explains the teacher.
We are at the music conservatory of Bondy, a popular neighborhood of just over 53,000 inhabitants in the Parisian outskirts, the so-called banlieue, in the Seine Saint-Denis department. It is one of the areas with the highest poverty and unemployment rates, where many French people, children or grandchildren of immigrants, live and where a large part of the Muslim population is concentrated. A place where the population feels marginalized and has fewer opportunities than the rest.
"He has put stars in the eyes of all those little children from the neighborhood, who now know that for them, too, everything is possible"
Mbappé has made Bondy famous and is a role model for many children in these neighborhoods. In the seven years he was at PSG and now, having just signed with Real Madrid, he has been an example for them.
Even as a child, he had "that charisma." Céline has no trouble recalling. She remembers, for example, a group photo on Music Day, celebrated in France on June 21. Adults take to the streets to dance and have fun, while children and teenagers perform their musical acts in schools. That year, at the Bondy conservatory, Céline was organizing her students for the event. They had to sing: she was giving them instructions, but some were distracted with their parents, friends, or reading the paper.
There was only one who was looking at her, very focused on doing it right. "No one was paying attention to me. The children were doing their own thing, scattered, and he was the only one staring at me intently. That photo precisely shows what Kylian Mbappé is: a person who, even then, was focused, eager, so willing to learn that it's as if he absorbed everything I was telling them."
Céline sits in front of the piano and starts playing. A beam of light enters through the conservatory room window. She has been a teacher at this center for decades, teaching children, but also, she explains, students who are 60 years old. It is clear that she enjoys teaching and that music runs through her veins. "It's never too late to learn," she warns. She uses the curiosity of that child with big eyes as an example, the "Bondy boy," as some call him.
This conservatory is a place of opportunity for many children in Bondy. The neighborhood's multiculturalism is evident in the list of students accepted for the upcoming school year: all with names of diverse origins. Before Mbappé became the star of PSG, this was just another neighborhood in Saint Denis. The footballer, as his teacher acknowledges, "has positioned Bondy at a national, international, and planetary level, one day even the Martians will know who Kylian is. I am a product of the banlieue, so we all deeply thank him for that."
No one refers to him as "Mbappé" in France. In central Paris or in the banlieue, in a ministry or on the street, for all French people, he is "Kylian." He has been more than a footballer, he has been a national unifying factor. He is the son of a Cameroonian immigrant, and sports have always been prominent in his family (his mother was a former handball player). He is a son of the 'banlieue', but, as his teacher explains, he has "that human capital, that charm, charisma, and that legitimacy to speak and connect with people: in high spheres and in these neighborhoods." A year ago, during the largest wave of riots in France after the death of a young man shot by a police officer in a popular neighborhood, it was Mbappé who called for calm to stop the violence. Last week, he urged the French to vote "against extremism."
The qualities that have led him to shine on the field are the ones his teachers perceived during those years he spent at the conservatory, between the ages of six and ten. Although he didn't particularly stand out for his musical abilities: "He progressed like the rest of the children, but he didn't stand out for that, but for that thirst for learning, for seeking... That's what made him special." Céline adds that his mother "was always with him, attentive to everything."
Céline taught him some solfeggio, and Françoise Ducos was his flute teacher. The teacher recently moved to another center just a few months ago. "He stood out for his way of being" in the world, "and we don't say this because he became famous, even as a child, he stood out for that," she warns.
Aware of his influence, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, has tried in every way to keep him in France, without success. He maneuvered for Mbappé to stay at PSG a year ago. He stepped onto the field to be by his side during the World Cup final, a year and a half ago, which France lost to Argentina. It was Macron to whom Mbappé first announced that he was finally moving to Real Madrid.
The president invited him to dinner at the Élysée over a month ago, an event at which Florentino Pérez was also present. In the country, Kylian is more than just a football star. He is the anchor of these two Frances. His teacher sums it up: "He has always expressed himself well, is intelligent and approachable, he rises and makes himself understood below. He is like the sun, shining for everyone. He has put stars in the eyes of all those little children from the neighborhood, who now know that for them, too, everything is possible."