There should be a charity football match this evening in Paris between a team of MPs and an XI made up of former footballers, such as World Cup winner Christian Karembeu and the ex-Arsenal star Robert Pires. All proceeds – estimated to be around €35,000 (£32,000) – will go to a charity that protects children from online abuse.

But on Tuesday evening several left-wing MPs withdrew because they couldn’t bring themselves to play in a team that, for the first time since the side was formed in 2014, contained some players from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

In statements issued by the Greens, Socialist party and La France Insoumise, they claimed that their participation in the match would contribute to the ‘normalisation’ of the National Rally.

The parliamentary president of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance, Aurore Bergé, also recommended that no one from the party should sully their reputation by exchanging passes with a right-wing MP. One of the Renaissance MPs, Karl Olive, has said he intends to ignore the advice.

‘In another life, I was a sports journalist,’ he said. ‘During this time I commentated on matches involving the national team that contained players from Paris Saint-Germain and Olympic Marseille.’ (French football’s bitterest rivalry).

The centre-right Republican party have said they have no intention of withdrawing because ‘what’s at stake is the cheque for the children’.

National Rally MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy described the withdrawal as ‘ridiculous’, commenting:

‘Sport is meant to bring people together, even countries in tension play sport together. The French will judge such sectarianism and pettiness unworthy of sporting values very harshly.’

The electorate may also be tempted to judge the actions of these politicians as a sign of their contempt for democracy. Aside from Macron, Le Pen is France’s most popular politician having reached the presidential run-off in 2017 and 2022; her party won 89 seats in June’s parliamentary elections, making them the second largest single party behind Macron’s Renaissance. That was the moment they became ‘normalised’.

If some of those on the left refuse to play football with their political opponents then what chance working together for the good of the country? In June, Macron called on the left-wing NUPE coalition and Le Pen’s National Rally to show ‘responsibility and cooperation’ in the divided parliament at a time when France is facing challenges on several fronts.

Pulling out of a charity football match at a late hour is not only irresponsible; it’s immature and selfish. Ideology before charity, and so much for the cherished concept of inclusivity.

It hasn’t been a good month for the European left, what with election defeats in Sweden and Italy. In France, two high-profile MPs, Adrien Quatennens, seen by many as the successor to Jean-Luc Melenchon, and Julien Bayou, the charismatic head of the Greens, have stood down after accusations of domestic and psychological abuse respectively (Bayou has denied the accusations).

It may not have been the best moment to come over all moralistic.

The match is going ahead but the petty withdrawal will likely reinforce the impression among many that the French left today are intolerant and unreasonable, and in this instance, devoid of compassion. They have scored a spectacular own goal.