Copies des articles cités le 1er juillet 06
By NATHANIEL VINTON
On Tuesday, a good deal of the action that took place in the center of the field consisted of elegant dodges, inventive passes and crafty steals.
Then, in the last 10 minutes,
In the 83rd minute, Zidane lofted a free kick that found midfielder Patrick Vieira, whose header off the body of
Zidane sealed the victory with a rush into the penalty area two minutes into injury time, putting the ball past the Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas.
"It was a remarkable match in every way," said Raymond Domenech, the French coach. "We may have a team of old men, but we know how to be patient. Younger people run out of breath."
It was a painfully sudden deceleration for
Older players were certainly doing their part, but
"There are very young players in this team who must learn lessons from matches such as these," said
At that point several French players jeered at Aragonés, who in 2004 was caught on camera making a racist remark about
With their emphasis on midfield control and generous passing, the Spaniards were the revelation of the first round, weaving through their opponents. As a team, the Spaniards seemed closer than any of the European teams to emulating the Brazilians' playful style.
But it was
"The adventure continues," said Zidane, the 34-year-old star of French soccer.
The son of Algerian immigrants, Zidane found high-paid stardom for clubs in
After Tuesday's game, his teammates and coach mentioned July 9, the date of this year's final in
"We haven't set ourselves a limit," Vieira said. "We're improving every game, and I'm sure that we can improve against
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Vantage Point: Zidane shows his majesty in leading
Rob Hughes International Herald Tribune
Published:
Every match for which Zinedine Zidane lines up at this World Cup is potentially his last, and there are inevitable signs that age really does weary even a sporting genius. A newspaper in
But not here and not now, they haven't. Zidane had the last laugh, scoring the last goal in a 3-1 victory and demonstrating that experience is not so easily shouldered aside by impertinent youth.
"We were admirable on all levels, courageous, reactive, solid, intelligent, lucid and patient," said Raymond Domenech, the French coach. "Patrick Vieira was written off, Zizou ought not to be playing - but our little team of oldies is still in there. They may be old, but they are patient."
The defiance was clear in the first quarter, although later the vigor of
At first, and then in the end, it didn't look that way. Zidane, his jaw set as the Spanish supporters whistled down the Marseillaise, moved right, left and center to try to impose his will and his fabulous skill.
There must be one last, big performance left in a player of such greatness, and as he worked to put himself at the heart of his team, we wondered, could this be the night?
Gradually, however, the Spanish young bloods put their blades into
It was tight, it was intense, but never dull, and a world away from the insane brawling between
Here were men using legitimate force and respect for the talents of fellow pros.
But in the 27th minute, the deadlock broke. Mariano Pernia, the recently discovered Spanish left back, delivered a corner kick, Pablo went down in the crowded goalmouth, and Roberto Rosetti, the Italian referee, unhesitatingly pointed to the penalty spot.
Replays showed that there was a nudge, barely enough to send a big defender like Pablo sprawling to the ground the way he did, but a shove in the back nevertheless.
The French howled, the referee ignored them, and David Villa drove his penalty low beneath the despairing French goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez.
After that,
It was a delusion. A momentary lapse in Spanish concentration just before halftime brought the equalizer. Thierry Henry had been caught offside five times in the first half, but in the 41st minute he intelligently moved wide to the left, creating space for somebody else.
That somebody was Frank Ribery, the winger seeking to use this World Cup as a platform to free himself from Marseille. He found the right moment, playing the ball to Vieira, running for the return - and running on and on, around the advancing goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, and, as two defenders urgently arrived, Ribery coolly struck the ball past them into the net.
The second half was no mirror to the first.
Now Luis Aragonés, the wily fox of
Still, the contest remained even, toe to toe, until the 78th minute, when Joaquín cut in from the right and used his left foot to drive the ball wide of the near post.
The clock was ticking, with extra time on the horizon, when a controversial decision helped give
Henry had run into the back of Puyol.
"That goal came from a free kick that wasn't a foul, and we were punished by a refereeing error," Aragonés lamented.
Protest was not the only thing in the air. Zidane chipped the free kick toward the goal, it took a deflection off a defender's head, and when Vieira met the ball by the far post there was another deflection, off the inner thigh of Sergio Ramos, before the ball trickled over the line.
The Spaniards, never fulfilled at the World Cup level, had arrived in
But no matter that they dominated the ball, and that their most famous supporter, Manolo, beat the drum with a frenzy. There still was the matter of the class of Zidane.
On the stroke of time, still on the field and still hungry, the old-timer dodged Puyol, swiveled away and thrashed the ball with his right foot low into the net.
The great man had, after all, shown his majesty. It took
Every match for which Zinedine Zidane lines up at this World Cup is potentially his last, and there are inevitable signs that age really does weary even a sporting genius. A newspaper in
But not here and not now, they haven't. Zidane had the last laugh, scoring the last goal in a 3-1 victory and demonstrating that experience is not so easily shouldered aside by impertinent youth.
"We were admirable on all levels, courageous, reactive, solid, intelligent, lucid and patient," said Raymond Domenech, the French coach. "Patrick Vieira was written off, Zizou ought not to be playing - but our little team of oldies is still in there. They may be old, but they are patient."
The defiance was clear in the first quarter, although later the vigor of
At first, and then in the end, it didn't look that way. Zidane, his jaw set as the Spanish supporters whistled down the Marseillaise, moved right, left and center to try to impose his will and his fabulous skill.
There must be one last, big performance left in a player of such greatness, and as he worked to put himself at the heart of his team, we wondered, could this be the night?
Gradually, however, the Spanish young bloods put their blades into
It was tight, it was intense, but never dull, and a world away from the insane brawling between
Here were men using legitimate force and respect for the talents of fellow pros.
But in the 27th minute, the deadlock broke. Mariano Pernia, the recently discovered Spanish left back, delivered a corner kick, Pablo went down in the crowded goalmouth, and Roberto Rosetti, the Italian referee, unhesitatingly pointed to the penalty spot.
Replays showed that there was a nudge, barely enough to send a big defender like Pablo sprawling to the ground the way he did, but a shove in the back nevertheless.
The French howled, the referee ignored them, and David Villa drove his penalty low beneath the despairing French goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez.
After that,
It was a delusion. A momentary lapse in Spanish concentration just before halftime brought the equalizer. Thierry Henry had been caught offside five times in the first half, but in the 41st minute he intelligently moved wide to the left, creating space for somebody else.
That somebody was Frank Ribery, the winger seeking to use this World Cup as a platform to free himself from Marseille. He found the right moment, playing the ball to Vieira, running for the return - and running on and on, around the advancing goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, and, as two defenders urgently arrived, Ribery coolly struck the ball past them into the net.
The second half was no mirror to the first.
Now Luis Aragonés, the wily fox of
Still, the contest remained even, toe to toe, until the 78th minute, when Joaquín cut in from the right and used his left foot to drive the ball wide of the near post.
The clock was ticking, with extra time on the horizon, when a controversial decision helped give
Henry had run into the back of Puyol.
"That goal came from a free kick that wasn't a foul, and we were punished by a refereeing error," Aragonés lamented.
Protest was not the only thing in the air. Zidane chipped the free kick toward the goal, it took a deflection off a defender's head, and when Vieira met the ball by the far post there was another deflection, off the inner thigh of Sergio Ramos, before the ball trickled over the line.
The Spaniards, never fulfilled at the World Cup level, had arrived in
But no matter that they dominated the ball, and that their most famous supporter, Manolo, beat the drum with a frenzy. There still was the matter of the class of Zidane.
On the stroke of time, still on the field and still hungry, the old-timer dodged Puyol, swiveled away and thrashed the ball with his right foot low into the net.
The great man had, after all, shown his majesty. It took
_
374 words
The Wall Street Journal
11
English
(Copyright (c) 2006, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
The day after glory at the World Cup, Parisians had a bounce in their step rarely seen of late, in spite of a late night of street parties and car honking. "We won! we won!" a young lady enthusiastically told random shoppers at a pastry shop yesterday morning, as if they didn't know. "Giant" roared the cover of Le Parisien, the capital's most popular tabloid, over a picture of football great Zinedine Zidane, or Zizou as everyone calls him.
Imagine the ecstasy if Les Bleus manage to get past
Yet
So all of
FT.com site : Media ridicule tells Chirac the nightmare has just begun.
Martin Arnold in
526 words
Financial Times (FT.Com)
English
(c) 2006 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved
Jacques Chirac woke up on Tuesday morning to face one of the worst fates that can befall a head of state: widespread ridicule.
Instead, his speech was greeted by resounding boos from the media, reinforcing the atmosphere of fin de regne that has dogged his second term in office.
"You don't change a losing team," said Liberation's front page, a sarcastic reference to Mr Chirac's repeated support for Dominique de Villepin, his enfeebled and unpopular prime minister.
Pierre Giacometti, analyst at Ipsos, said Mr Chirac "never stood a chance" of regaining public confidence with his plea that Mr de Villepin and his government had been judged unfairly.
The press mercilessly poked fun at the president's gaffes, such as his reference to the Airbus A370, which does not exist, and his prediction that
"Cut off from the rest of the world in the Elysee palace, he has created a virtual world that he believes to be more real than reality," mocked Liberation's editorial, in an irreverent tone rarely used when discussing the head of state, even by his fiercest critics.
Le Figaro, the conservative broadsheet usually supportive of the government, drew an unflattering comparison between Mr Chirac and Zinedine Zidane, the ageing and much-criticised captain of France's struggling football team.
"His foot is no longer as sure, his glance no longer as quick: like Zinedine Zidane, Jacques Chirac has won every competition, but that was all long ago," said Le Figaro's editorial. "Like Zidane, as we all know, he will soon be forced to hang up his boots."
The regional press were equally damning. La Republique des
Le Monde criticised "an exercise in self-satisfaction, which was, at the least, surreal". The brickbats have built up after an annus horribilis for Mr Chirac. In May 2005, he lost a referendum on
Soon afterwards, came the loss of the 2012 Olympic games to
Mr Chirac on Monday attempted to leave the door open to him running for a third term in next year's election. But analysts judged that the president had no choice but to maintain the possibility of running again, or he would have become even more of a lame duck leader.
LEADER
De Villepin in office but hardly in power The prime minister has lost all confidence, except Chirac's.
520 words
Financial Times
Page 18
English
(c) 2006 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved
As was once said of John Major but is even more apt of Dominique de Villepin,
The strain is showing in Mr de Villepin. Last week he lost his temper with the Socialist opposition leader in parliament and sued the journalist authors of two recent books about his involvement in the Clearstream affair.
In his latest setback, Mr de Villepin has been forced by his own UMP party to postpone until autumn legislation to privatise Gaz de France. This is required under the prime minister's plan to bolt the state-controlled utility on to
But Mr de Villepin had no choice. The bulk of the UMP party, led by his rival Nicolas Sarkozy, have had their fill of a prime minister who was sprung on them a year ago by Mr Chirac and who in turn has sprung unwelcome legislative ideas on them.
Compounding
Some of the anti-Villepin group in the UMP are also starting to complain about the fifth republic's subordination of parliament to the monarchical presidency. Unfortunately, such gripes are mainly the result of the war within the UMP to succeed Mr Chirac, and are most unlikely to lead to any necessary recasting of
LEADER
De Villepin in office but hardly in power The prime minister has lost all confidence, except Chirac's.
520 words
Financial Times
Page 18
English
(c) 2006 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved
As was once said of John Major but is even more apt of Dominique de Villepin,
The strain is showing in Mr de Villepin. Last week he lost his temper with the Socialist opposition leader in parliament and sued the journalist authors of two recent books about his involvement in the Clearstream affair.
In his latest setback, Mr de Villepin has been forced by his own UMP party to postpone until autumn legislation to privatise Gaz de France. This is required under the prime minister's plan to bolt the state-controlled utility on to
But Mr de Villepin had no choice. The bulk of the UMP party, led by his rival Nicolas Sarkozy, have had their fill of a prime minister who was sprung on them a year ago by Mr Chirac and who in turn has sprung unwelcome legislative ideas on them.
Compounding
Some of the anti-Villepin group in the UMP are also starting to complain about the fifth republic's subordination of parliament to the monarchical presidency. Unfortunately, such gripes are mainly the result of the war within the UMP to succeed Mr Chirac, and are most unlikely to lead to any necessary recasting of
Jospin ponders challenge to Socialist frontrunner
By Martin Arnold
Published:
Lionel Jospin,
It will be a battle between a man who represents the party’s past and a woman who has cast herself as the future of the French left.
ADVERTISEMENT
Four years after his humiliating defeat in the 2002 presidential election and his subsequent self-imposed exile from politics, Mr Jospin thrust himself back into the limelight this week, declaring he was considering entering the race for next year’s ballot.
Supporters say Mr Jospin’s return was prompted by his view that Ms Royal, who has shot to a clear lead in opinion polls over the party’s other presidential pretenders, does not have the experience or the policies to win next year’s election.
However, analysts say it will be tough to dislodge Ms Royal from her position as favourite before the party’s nomination in November. They also say Mr Jospin’s comeback will be hampered by the fact that many Socialists have still not forgiven him for abandoning the party after its crushing defeat in 2002.
The battle between Mr Jospin, a former Trotskyist, and Ms Royal, president of the Poitou-Charente region, will be critical in deciding whether French voters will be offered a Socialist candidate representing a break with the past or a familiar old face next April.
One of Mr Jospin’s close friends and advisers said: “His analysis is that no one has really emerged on the left, except Ségolène, who he does not approve of, as he does not trust her ability to manage the government and thinks she is all marketing hype.”
The 68-year-old made a carefully staged return to the political arena, writing a column in Wednesday’s Le Monde newspaper setting out what he felt should be the main issues of the presidential campaign, followed by an interview on prime-time television.
True to his austere Protestant pastor image while prime minister from 1997 to 2002, he answered a direct question on whether he was a presidential candidate with typical stiff-backed cautiousness.
“If it appears that I am the best placed to bring together the left, to re-unite and take charge of the country, to exercise the office of president in the difficult situation of France today, and to propose to French people a way out of the crisis we are in, then I will ask myself the question,” he said.
“A few months before the decision must be taken, well, this is an open question,” he admitted. When pressed on whether he was backtracking on a promise definitively to quit politics after his defeat in 2002, he corrected the interviewer, saying he had never used the adjective “definitive”.
Marc Abélès, director of research at CNRS, said: “I think Ségolène is doing some good work within the party and Jospin has waited too long in the shadows. He will appear as an old man, as well as a loser, and a bad loser at that.”
The latest opinion poll, published on Wednesday by Le Figaro Magazine, showed Mr Jospin still had a long way to go to convince Socialist party members that he was their best hope of beating Nicolas Sarkozy, interior minister and favourite to be the right’s main presidential candidate.
Ms Royal had a 57 per cent approval rating, against only 27 per cent for Mr Jospin, based on interviews of 1,000 people before the ex-premier made his public declarations this week.
Pierre Moscovici, former Socialist minister, said: “Jospin has positioned himself as a rescuer… but I don’t see under what circumstances that could happen.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
The Sunday Times
Comrades threaten to overthrow Royal
Matthew Campbell, Paris
THEY looked like extras in a remake of Doctor Zhivago, but the people waving red flags and handing out leaflets about “class struggle” were not acting. They were attending a rally in support of one of
In some European countries, parties of the extreme left are clinging, at best, to the political rock face, but in
Her millions of fans refer to her simply as Arlette and, quaint as it may sound, this 67-year-old former typist with cropped hair and an elfin smile is preaching the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as a solution to
“The rich live from the exploitation of workers; they get all the benefits,” she said, adopting rhetoric not heard in most developed countries since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Laguiller may belong in a political museum, but the appeal of Leninism in the
She and those like her claim credit for
It would not be the first time a Socialist candidate has been torpedoed by the extreme left. Lionel Jospin lost so many votes to the “loony left” in 2002, when it became fashionable among the “intellos” to vote for the likes of Laguiller, that the extreme rightwinger Jean-Marie Le Pen went through to round two instead of the former Socialist prime minister.
The Socialists were forced to “hold their noses” and vote for President Jacques Chirac, who was re-elected. Could the French left be self-destructive enough to make the same mistake twice?
Some polls suggest that a smattering of far-left parties could score up to 20%, splitting the left-wing vote in favour of the far right.
Although hugely popular with the public, Royal is struggling to win the hearts and minds of party militants who are upset with what they suspect might be her “Blairite” agenda. She needs their support to win her party’s nomination to stand for president.
Already she has been pressed into ditching social conservatism in favour of gay adoption and marriage. But nothing she can do, short of announcing that capitalism is evil, will satisfy the heirs of Trotsky and Lenin. “She’s a supporter of big business,” said Henriette Mauthey, a spokeswoman for Workers’ Struggle. “We cannot submit to capitalist interests.”
The same is heard from Olivier Besancenot, 30, presidential candidate of the Revolutionary Communist League. “She is from the right of the Socialist party,” he said. “We have nothing in common.”
Few politicians have knocked on as many doors as Besancenot: for years he has been delivering the mail in
To anyone with time to chat, the postman will advocate a paradise of the proletariat at
The former, at least, seems to appeal to a proportion of French voters. Many fear that even a Socialist government will end up imposing on them an “Anglo-Saxon” economic model resulting in the loss of their social benefits.
Another reason for the appeal of Besancenot and his friends is
Besancenot and Laguiller are expected to score 3-5% each and pollsters expect a similar tally for Marie-Georges Buffet, the Communist party leader, and for José Bové, the pipe-smoking anti-globalisation icon, sheep farmer and leader of a bloc called No. The name harks back to the “No” campaign he led with Besancenot, Laguiller and the Communists to block the EU constitution at a referendum last year.
Bové wants to revive that rejectionist team to fight the presidential election, with himself as the candidate. The postman seemed quite keen on the idea, suggesting the four leaders sit down and discuss it over some “nosh”. Laguiller, however, seemed reluctant to abandon her sixth — and, apparently, last — run for president.
Besides, she will not sit down with the Communists, regarding them as “traitors” for having previously entered coalitions with Socialists.
Four other left-wing parties, including the Greens, are expected to field presidential candidates. It could make for a hopelessly splintered left-wing vote; and François Hollande, the Socialist party secretary-general who is also Royal’s boyfriend and the father of her children, was already sounding dismayed.
“I respect all of these personalities,” he said last week. “I say to them, ‘You have the right to present yourselves [as candidates], but we [Socialists] have a duty to be in the second round of the election’.”
It promises to be a lively election battle.
French leave
Posted by Colin Randall at 26 Jun 06
Tags:
Beach
Before heading to the beach, follow Colin Randall's advice
For the thousands upon thousands of British people who are about to join us in
I am a July person. I prefer to be at my haunts in the south of
In
Not every expat in
But if I set the ball rolling, maybe others can chip in with secrets they are prepared to pass on.
My first piece of advice may be too late for some. It is to ignore tour operators’ offers to find you hotel accommodation if you are making a car journey that needs an overnight stop on your way to mobile home sites, gites or villages de vacances.
Things may have changed since I did this kind of thing en famille. There may have been a revolution in the trade’s approach in the past 10 years. But my experience was invariably that I could do a whole lot better for myself than anything being offered to me.
Some travel people used to list a choice of stops at hotels for which the charge was the British-style per person, instead of the vastly fairer French per room. If that still goes on, do not even consider the option until you have exhausted every other possibility.
My routine was to avoid advance bookings at all, and simply leave the motorway or major routes at around
I can recall occasionally being forced to settle for somewhere more expensive than I’d wanted, but it was still cheaper than what I had been offered in advance and I cannot recall ever having to sleep in the car.
This also sometimes meant stopping at places that the tour operator wouldn’t have cared to recommend, but a modest hotel can still be a perfectly decent one.
You can even check out, on spec or through easy internet searches, rock bottom prices at the clean but functional chains such as Formule 1 or Mister Bed. You don’t actually need that much more for a basic pause – and you can blow the notional savings on a great meal.
Modest or motel, town centre or just off the autoroute, I have done it with varying degrees of satisfaction all over
I remember failing to find anything along the coast down from Cherbourg one Bastille Day weekend, but then having plenty of choice on Mont St Michel, by then empty of its day trippers. Such stops can become part of the holiday.
Even on a long drive, it is worth veering a few miles off the motorway for a break rather than fighting for space with everyone else at the service areas. At the risk of never being able to get a table there again, I would commend the little hilltop restaurant next to the ruined castle above Châteauneuf du Pape for its reasonable food and grand views.
British visitors to
If you head for the most popular tourist locations – and that means most places along the
Allow for ferocious motorway toll charges and remember, if you stop at a terrace for a drink, that while drink is cheap in the supermarkets, it is expensive in bars.
One last thing for now: be prepared to meet lots of French people, and make an effort with their language. Large numbers of them are said to be giving American, Egyptian and other far-off holidays a miss this year to return to the Med and
That means looking out for the chasse-croisé weekends when everyone seems to be on the move, if sometimes at a snail's pace, in one direction or the other.
posted by JB CADIER at 9:04 AM
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