FRANCE’S winning World Cup team is to receive the country’s highest accolade, the Légion d’Honneur, the French presidency has announced.
France defeated Croatia 4-2 in the football final in Moscow on Sunday.
Crowds of fans lined the Champs-Elysées in Paris yesterday to give the team a heroes’ welcome.
The players were also honoured with a presidential reception.
France was basking in the glory of its national football team’s triumph, after a night of wild celebrations.
“Eternal happiness” read yesterday’s headline in sports daily L’Equipe, summing up the mood of many after France’s thrilling win in Moscow.
President Emmanuel Macron exulted on the field and in the locker room with the players, and is hoping their victory gives him a boost, too. The French, though, are more enamoured of the players, like 19-year-old star Kylian Mbappe, who scored the fourth goal, and of their coach, Didier Deschamps, with a parody photo circulating online suggesting Paris’s most famous avenue should be renamed “Deschamps Elysees”.
The victory glow brightened yesterday’s morning Paris commute, with young people in cars still shouting in celebration.
The victory comes 20 years after France’s first World Cup win – on home soil, after a 3-0 defeat of Brazil in Paris.
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