Champagne party greets champions

Chirac, speaking in a traditional Bastille Day television interview, said the French had presented in recent days `an image of a victorious France, which for once has won together.’

France’s 3-0 victory over Brazil on Sunday sparked a three-day long street party which has surprised almost everyone in a country more used to seeing the streets filled with strikers or people protesting against near-record unemployment. Nearlya million and a half people packed the Champs Elysees on Sunday night, recalling scenes of the 1944 Liberation. The victory parade featuring the team bus came to a near standstill.

The atmosphere was no different at the annual garden party in the 18th century Elysee Palace. The 6,000 guests ignored champagne and surged forward to see the players who, Chirac’s office said, would be decorated as knights of the Legion of Honour, along with their coach, Aime Jacquet.

France’s traditional drive to keep the English language at bay was abandoned. As the team arrived, the Republican Guard band struck up Gloria Gaynor’s `we will survive’. But a song by British band Queen, `We are the Champions’, took pride of place.

A few, perhaps forgetting where they were, struck up `Zizo for president’, a common refrain over the last few days to honour Zinedine Zidane, the Juventus mid-fielder who scored France’s first and second goals in Sunday’s match.

Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, has become a hero for thosewho hope World Cup victory will bury racial differences and undercut far-right national front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

In 1996 Le Pen suggested the national team was not truly French because it included `foreign’ players.

Besides Zidane, many of the team were black players from France’s overseas territories.

The national front said on Monday it was delighted by a victory which allowed France to rediscover its patriotism and pointedly described Zidane as a child of French Algeria.