"Giant" ceremony heralds World Cup football festival

Blaring ethno-techno music and escorted by 4,500 costumed extras, the 18-metre robots took separate routes toward the Place de la Concorde, the heart of a kickoff party for one million people. “We want to show that football is accessible to everyone and belongs to no one,” said Jean-Pascal Levy-Trumet, who designed the “fete du football” show. “The grand theme is universality in a single world.”

Moussa,an African giant, was the first to awake at the evening kick-off, opening his eyes to enthusiastic applause. He was accompanied by little kids on ostriches actually people on stilts.

And dancing African baobab trees and termite hills. The 38-ton giants were powered by small trucks hidden in their shoes, which moved back and forth to make the giants look like they were rocking.

Parisians awoke to find the giants at familiar monuments, along with throngs of strangely dressed tourists from the 31 nations joining France in the globe’s biggest sports tournament.

Pablo, the American-Indian giant, crouched under the Arc de Triomphe, ready for his afternoon stroll down the Champs Elysees to the animated trees and bugs that depict nature.

Moussa waited by the Eiffel Tower, to symbolically discover man and the earth on his wheel-assisted walk past Napoleon’s tomb and across the ornate Alexandre III Bridge. Romeo, the European, snoozed outside the Opera Garnier. His theme was love, and along his route waited asculptor’s conception of the urban woman, a mere 4.5 metres tall.

Ho, the Asian, camped overnight on the Pont Neuf, where he would encounter flying fish, dragons and whimsical beasts illustrating his themes of spirituality and fantasy. Heavy overnight rains did not dampen the mood, but they washed off Ho’s loincloth, made of rubberised-plastic, exposing the midriff of his articulated steel skeleton. which the workmen pinned it back on.