France’s young, World Cup-winning football team have staged a victorious home-coming parade in an open-top bus down the Champs Élysées as hundreds of thousands of supporters wrapped in flags cheered them on.
The 4-2 win over Croatia in Moscow on Sunday has cemented France’s reemergence as a football superpower and brought the country together. The squad were driven down the packed avenue in Paris, smiling and waving and holding up the cup as the French air force staged a flypast amid plumes of red, white and blue.
City-centre Parisians and others from the capital’s banlieue suburbs swapped flags and sung the national anthem with others who had travelled from across the country.
On Sunday night, after the final whistle blew in Moscow, up to 1 million supporters had gathered on the Champs Élysées. Throughout the night and into Monday cars sped around Paris with people leaning out of windows waving flags.
Sissoko, 32, from the eastern outskirts of Paris, not far from where Paul Pogba grew up, brought his sons, Sadia, eight, and Hanet, six, to catch a glimpse of the team. “This is a big moment for the kids, it shows what they can dream of, who their role models can be,” he said.
France has traditionally placed more pressure than most other countries on its football team as a national symbol that can fix society’s ills. The mood of unity and positivity that this diverse French team has brought has been seen as a balm for a divided nation thathit by terrorism, and where the far-right Marine Le Pen won more than 10 million votes in last year’s presidential election.
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