Actually the reaction is more about his international team status. He is just very new to the team and by playing outside France for a team that has no Europe competition is quite risky to be honest. Even though we are a bigger club, Blanc would not care about it.
I know there are various kind of reasons behind, but Ginola, Robert and Ben Arfa all lose their international team status during their time at Newcastle. Therefore I kinda understand why there's such a response.