La France vue par ... la presse anglo-saxonne

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2006-09-29T19:11:00.000+01:00

A partir du 1er septembre 06 le texte de la revue de presse est disponible sur le site www.europe1.fr à la rubrique "chroniques du week-end"

Eté 2006

2006-07-30T10:08:00.000+01:00

La revue de presse reprendra début septembre.

Bon été, bonnes vacances.

JBC

Joie incrédule 08/07

2006-07-30T09:56:00.000+01:00

Inutile de dire que l’essentiel des commentaires sur la France cette semaine dans la presse anglo-saxonne sont des commentaires sur l’équipe de France à la veille de la finale.

Le correspondant du Times de Londres (02/07) décrit « une semaine folle » pendant laquelle « la France qui avait le cafard a été saisie par une joie incrédule... Même les Parisiens, écrit le journaliste anglais, les Parisiens qui sont habituellement revêches et impatients, même les Parisiens ont commencé à se sourire les uns aux autres ». « Depuis un an la France allait mal continue le journaliste du Times et il paraissait évident que l’équipe de France allait honteusement se faire sortir de la Coupe du Monde. La France ne croyait plus en son équipe, la France ne croyait plus en elle-même ».

Puis il y a eu les matches contre l’Espagne contre le Brésil contre le Portugal . « C’est exactement le remède dont la France avait besoin continue le journaliste du Times. Avec un message qui n’a échappé à personne la plupart des joueurs français sont noirs ou maghrébins. C’est un message pour la France blanche écrit le Times qui doit se rappeler tout ce qu’elle doit à ses immigrés et à leurs descendants qui sont pourtant maintenus à la marge de la société ».

L'homme le plus cool de la planète

Zinédine Zidane est évidemment encensé par la presse anglo-saxonne. Pour le New York Times « c’est l’homme le plus cool de la planète ». Pour le Times (03/07) « le plus grand joueur de sa génération… il est en train de franchir les quelques pas qui le séparent de l’immortalité ».

Le Daily Telegraph (02/07) : « il a un touché de velours et une vision ahurissante ». Pour le Financial Times (03/07) c’est « le virtuose comparable à un chaton qui jongle avec une pelote de laine ». Pour The Independent, « Zinédine Zidane est un héros du sport sans pareil ».

Et il n’y a pas que Zidane. « Tous les médias attendent et observent Zidane écrit le Herald Tribune (02/07) mais contre le Portugal c’est Thuram qui a le mieux résisté. Lilian Thuram qui selon le journal américain est la preuve que l’on peut être à la fois un grand footballeur et un être humain accompli ».

Et l’on n’oubliera pas Thierry Henry que le Sunday Times (02/04) appelle « le Superbe Henry qui a enfin fait mentir tous ceux qui disaient qu’il jouait moins bien pour son pays que pour son club ».

Enfin le Guardian (05/07) de Londres a été surpris de voir le premier ministre Dominique de Villepin commenter à chaud et en direct la victoire contre le Portugal. « Le premier ministre de plus impopulaire depuis la guerre écrit le Guardian espère clairement que les Français vont établir un parallèle entre leur équipe nationale revenue de loin et leur Premier Ministre. Mais les Français ne sont pas idiots écrit le Guardian ils savent que Chirac et De Villepin ne sont pour rien dans les exploits de Zidane et Thierry Henry ».

Un mariage royal pour la République

Ce qui nous amène à la campagne présidentielle. Le Times (01/07) sourit des perspectives de mariage de Ségolène Royal et François Hollande. « Un mariage royal pour la république » écrit le Times. « La France écrit ce journal n’a jamais élu une femme présidente et même jamais élu de célibataire. Si Ségolène Royal se marie cet été ce sera peut être pour rassurer la France rurale et catholique ».

Ségolène Royal qualifiée cette semaine dans le Daily Telegraph (02/07) de « socialiste chic et charismatique » et présentée dans le Christian Science Monitor américain comme « un tourbillon d’air frais dans la politique française ». Le Wall Street Journal (03/07) parle de « la campagne théâtrale de Ségolène Royal et de Nicolas Sarkozy, une campagne qui met fin à des décennies de vie politique coincée dominée par une élite qui a rarement essayé de s’adresser directement aux électeurs ».

Une devinette dans le Financial Times (04/07) quel est le pays qui va le mieux réussir économiquement cette année : la France ou l’Allemagne ? C’est la France qui aura une meilleure croissance parce que les Français consomment plus et épargnent moins que les Allemands. Ce que le Financial Times résume ainsi : « le pays prodigue s’en sort mieux que le pays prudent ».

Enfin un plaidoyer magnifique pour le vin français et c’est dans le New York Times (05/07) le plus influent des journaux américains. « On nous dit que le secteur du vin français est vieux et fatigué qu’il est rigide, bureaucratique, en manque de créativité et qu’il ne peut plus lutter contre les vins du nouveau monde. C’est peut être vrai dans le domaine des vins de basses qualité écrit le journal américain mais pour le reste c’est totalement faux. Le nouveau monde ne doit pas prendre ses rêves pour la réalité. Aucun pays ne peut s’approcher de la France en matière de variété et de qualité. Les grands vins français sont irrésistibles écrit le New York Times Oui la France est et reste le plus grand producteur de vin du monde ».

Copies des articles cités le 8 juillet 06

2006-07-30T09:55:00.000+01:00

France can't believe it

Zid What a difference a week makes. Until last Wednesday, France was down on its national football (soccer) team and down on itself. After a year of bad news including the loss of the 2012 Olympics to London, ghetto riots and a student revolt, it seemed natural that the team of Zinedine Zidane was heading for an ignominious exit from the World Cup. They were a bunch of listless guys who were too old for the job.

Then the old guys beat Spain and last night they knocked out Brazil, the giants of the sport.

Half a million people poured into the Champs Elysées to celebrate the quarter-final victory and the national mood has swung from gloom to a sort of disbelieving joy. The cheering erupted from balconies in my street in the demure 17th arrondissement. Police cars drove by honking their horns with tricolour flags flying from their windows. A couple of cars were torched by youths on the nearby Champs, but otherwise the night was a pure celebration of "black, white and Arab" France, the spirit that was last afoot when the country won the cup at home in 1998. This morning, the media and the politicians have gone wild with superlatives, cheering the miraculous, magical performance of Zidane and his recently decried team-mates. "What can I say?" began the man at my newspaper kiosk with tears in his eyes this morning. "It's too strong. Too wonderful. I keep pinching myself. We don't deserve happiness like this." On a brilliant summer morning, the city has a spring in its step and Parisians, usually glum and short-tempered, are smiling and talking to one-another. Clearly, say the pessimists, it can't last. On Wednesday, the semi-final against Portugal could put an end to the euphoria. But for the first time, France is beginning to believe that it might get to next Sunday's final in Germany and actually win the cup.

A victory would be a dose of medicine that France badly needs. Rarely has there been such a consensus -- measured by opinion polls and reflected in daily conversation -- that the country is on a losing streak, sliding into decline as the world passes it by. Even if the team fails to make it, they will have kicked the country out of its morose mood. President Chirac and his deeply unpopular government could even enjoy a respite before they depart next spring. Chirac is doing everything possible to associate himself with la nouvelle France gagnante He was in the stadium in Frankfurt last night and he will be at the next match on Wednesday. "My joy is that of all French men and women," Chirac said after the match.

And no-one will be able to escape the message. Most of the team members are black or of Arab origin, so white France will again be reminded of its debt to the immigrants and their descendants who are still kept on the edge of society.

Posted by Charles Bremner on July 02, 2006 at 12:09 PM in France, Paris, The world | Permalink

July 6, 2006

Sports of The Times

French in the Final, as a Spirit Moves Them

By GEORGE VECSEY

Munich

HE is younger than he used to be. He has lost that brooding, tired look of four years ago or even of two weeks ago. The final days of his career are agreeing with Zinédine Zidane, giving him a purpose.

The television caught him bounding out of the runway for the second half of France's World Cup semifinal match with Portugal yesterday, clear-eyed and eager to play another 45 minutes in the heat and tension. The French national federation could market a film of Zidane's enthusiasm to show players young and old: This is how an athlete goes to work.

Contrast this to the weary man who reported for duty in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea. He barely mustered the energy to hobble off the team bus, pulling a muscle early in a friendly match, a symptom of the age of the defending champions, who went out in the minimum of three games.

Now Zidane is conducting a seminar on how to go out on top. At the age of 34, he is the coolest man on the planet. Yesterday he delivered a textbook example of a penalty kick that, come to think of it, the French national federation could sell to England and Switzerland and other penalty-kick-challenged nations:

Head down. No visible emotion. No elbows flapping. No knees knocking. Deliberate but not timid-looking. Just whack the ball into a corner.

In this case, the corner to Zidane's left, giving France a 1-0 lead over Portugal in the 33rd minute, which it held right through the end. Now it will be Italy against France, two nations that have been there before, on Sunday in Berlin.

Portugal was nowhere near as good or artistic as it might have been, what with skill players like Deco and Costinha back from suspensions. There was reason to think this could be Portugal's first time in the finals. But Portugal's aging Luís Figo, who at 33 is five months younger than Zidane, ran out of ideas and gas before Zidane, his old Real Madrid teammate, ever could.

After all the prematch jockeying about which team dived the most, the referee, Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay, mostly waved off the blatant dives, sometimes with a glare, sometimes just by turning his back on the posturing.

Not that the lads didn't try. When Figo went down in the vicinity of Patrick Vieira, France Coach Raymond Domenech shook his head in exasperation.

Whoever said there are no hands in soccer? When Cristiano Ronaldo performed a flop in the 29th minute, Domenech made an elaborate diving motion with both hands.

Still, it was a quivering body hitting the ground that led to the French goal. Thierry Henry and Portugal's Ricardo Carvalho were jostling just inside the 18-yard box when Carvalho's left foot whacked Henry's right ankle. Needless to say, Henry went down hard, as Carvalho disgustedly wagged his index finger. But that was Thierry Henry down, and Larrionda, the referee who handed out three red cards in the United States-Italy first-round match, called the penalty, giving France a shot from 12 yards out.

Zidane took it. There was never any doubt.

•When a player is fouled in the penalty area, the real question is why he was loose near the ball in the first place. The answer in this case was that France's defense and its deliberate ball control made Henry's dramatic moment possible.

As France protected its lead, Zidane was the ringmaster of this fast-moving circus, sometimes waving his hand and calling for the ball, other times materializing in the flow, occasionally even rushing back on defense to harass Portugal's offense. After watching Zidane plod through his final days with Real Madrid last season, it was hard to believe this wraith.

He and Figo were once expensive members of the Galacticos, the overpriced, over-age stars that Real Madrid continues to collect. Together they helped win the Champions League in 2002, but then the pair, each a former World Footballer of the Year, retired from international play. Figo was persuaded to return by the national coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, while Zidane was persuaded to come back — either by a spirit or by his very living brother; he has told the tale both ways.

•The two old Galacticos sometimes collided like wayward meteorites yesterday, casting glances at each other. Figo had the hair; Zidane, who has shaved his head to hide the extent of his hair loss, had the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 Euro titles. Once France took the lead, the two ancients seemed to play in parallel universes.

The extra factor was the French goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez, who was wobbly in 1998, wobbly for Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and wobbly again yesterday, juggling balls and deflecting one rocket with a two-handed volleyball return to set up Figo's header high above the crossbar.

The rest of the match consisted of Zidane collecting the ball and distributing it, with stutter steps and back heel passes and deft no-look flicks. When it was over, the old Galacticos sought each other out on the field, first exchanging their captains' arm bands, then exchanging jerseys, after first embracing, bare sweaty chest to bare sweaty chest.

There has been a drop-off in the disgusting ritual of players putting on the sweaty jerseys of their opponents. This time, in a show of respect, Zidane pulled on Figo's maroon jersey before going to the sideline to salute the French fans. They would recognize Zidane even in Figo's jersey. He was the 34-year-old with exactly one more soccer match in his career, but still able to run with the young ones. It's the best way to go out of the World Cup.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

Times Online July 03, 2006

Zidane in twilight zone

By Matt Hughes

Brazil 0 France 1

IT IS ONE OF THE TRAGEDIES of life — or should that be death? — that a person’s real value is often only appreciated as they are slipping away. Thank heavens, then, that Zinédine Zidane is taking the few small steps remaining towards achieving immortality.

As they stumbled through the group stage, France’s squad of ageing superstars appeared intent on recreating the twilight of the gods, but Zidane has managed to turn back time. This monkish figure may well be able to live forever. In bewitching Brazil with his mesmeric ball control and wonderful range of passing, Zidane produced possibly his best performance since his finest hour, when he scored two goals against the same opposition to help France to win the 1998 World Cup final.

If he can somehow conjure up more magic in France’s remaining two matches, he could be holding the trophy aloft again on Sunday evening. Having cancelled his contract at Real Madrid, Zidane had seemed to be heading for his Swiss retirement home early in France’s opening match against his adopted land, a suitable setting for this most tranquil man, but he will not go quietly after all.

The transformation from the frail figure whose legs appeared to have failed him has been simply extraordinary, although Raymond Domenech, the France coach, claimed to be unsurprised, putting the change down to the feeling of liberation that retirement brings. Since the group stage, Zidane has played as if each game were his last, because it could be.

“You may be surprised, but I am not surprised at all,” Domenech said. “That’s Zidane. We know exactly what he is capable of doing. I think it’s precisely because he is retiring, because he is ending his career, that he is fully focused on the game. He doesn’t have to calculate anything. He can play with freedom and expression because he knows every game could be his last. That is the reason why he is able to play so well.”

The turning point may well have been Zidane’s angry confrontation with Domenech as he was substituted towards the end of his team’s second match, against South Korea, throwing the captain’s armband at the coach in the frustrated knowledge that a glorious career could have come to an ignominious end. France have certainly not looked back since, beating Togo on behalf of their suspended captain before he returned to inspire more impressive victories over Spain and now Brazil. His display on Saturday was even more imperious than what many had taken for his Spanish swansong, dictating the rhythm of the match from the moment he pirouetted away from three Brazilians in the opening minute. With Franck Ribéry and Florent Malouda providing a genuine threat down both flanks and Thierry Henry strutting instead of tutting up front , it was France who possessed the magical quartet and they should have won by more than Henry’s 57th-minute volley.

Emboldened by knocking out the holders, it has become possible to see France reclaiming their crown, with the equally energised Patrick Vieira pointing to parallels with 1998: a steadily-improving team, the sublime form of Zidane and another chance for their rainbow line-up to embarrass right-wing politicians like Jean-Marie Le Pen who said last week that he would like to see more white players in the team.

“I know few players have ever won two World Cups, but we are capable of it,” Vieira said. “We’ve beaten the favourites, a great side people thought might win the World Cup, which means a lot and confirms that we have the potential to go much further in this tournament. We’re strong and all believe in each other, are working for each other and can achieve great things. We believe more and more in ourselves and are improving every game, like in 1998.”

Brazil’s most supine surrender will have disappointed their worldwide army of glory-hunting fans, but with Zidane surely deserving of a glorious send-off it is not only the French who will be singing Allez les Bleus.

A beautiful match

By : Duncan White, 02/07/2006

Age before beauty? No chance. This France squad may be the oldest team in the tournament but last night they showed the aesthetics of the pitch are not just the province of this celebrated Brazil team. There was much artistry in the approach of Les Blues -and that was down to a return from their old grand master: Zinedine Zidane. His verdict: "tellement beau".

"I don't have the words to express how I feel right now," said France coach Raymond Domenech. "It was all so emotional, an epic match. It feels like a carnival: we are just one game away from the final. It is a great moment for me and my team. Now that the final whistle has blown we can concentrate on getting into the final. The players are ecstatic."

When the French were labouring through the group stages - - needing victory over Togo to progress after draws with Switzerland and Korea -Zizou was seen as emblematic of France's problems. His genius had faded, his place in the team bought with the wages of reputation not prowess. His suspension from the Togo match was seen as a chance for Les Bleus to shed the weight of their baggage, but Domenech reinstated Zidane against Spain and flickers of inspiration were visible.

Last night they burst back into full light. After laying on the goal for Henry with a deep free-kick, Zidane seemed to grow in stature. His graceful calm spread to his team-mates -and suddenly the whole team was playing with guile.

"We played an attractive game of football," said Thierry Henry, who scored the only goal of the game. "We just kept going and going and going.

"We played the way we knew we could. It was the sort of match you dream of playing in and now to be going to the semi-final, well, it's incredible." After the violence that marred the aftermath of Germany's win over Argentina, there was evidence here that the Corinthian spirit is not exhausted. When the final whistle blew, Henry did not sprint off to the France fans to milk the praise, he went through the Brazil team, hugging and consoling his opponents. When he embraced Ronaldinho it was reminiscent of Freddie Flintoff's consolation of Brett Lee in the Ashes.

Every game for Zidane could be his last: he retires from football after this tournament. Thankfully he is playing like he knows it, warding off the threat of an anticlimactic end to one of the great careers. This was a masterful display, a vintage of that velvet touch and astonishing vision. Even Brazilian fans were raised to their feet in rapture by some of Zizou's audacious passes. Time and again he sent Henry and Franck Ribery scampering clear down the flanks, repeatedly looking to exploit the space behind the marauding Cafu and Roberto Carlos. Even the trademark double drag-back was given an outing. "We got the victory we wanted, we just never stopped," Zidane said. "This was a beautiful match".

There were sublime moments of exceptional skill: Zidane killing an awkward looping ball stone-dead, Kaka pirouetting 180 degrees with the ball glued to his right boot, Henry skipping nonchalantly past Cafu and Lucio.

Yet the heart of this contest was the duel between the two spoilers: Claude Makelele of Chelsea and Gilberto Silva of Arsenal. Eric Cantona famously dismissed Makelele's predecessor, Didier Deschamps, as a 'water carrier', but the object of his scorn ended up drinking far more of the fizzy stuff.

The whole structure of these two sides rested upon their keystone players: if they cracked the rest would crumble. Faced with the rotating trio of Kaka, Ronaldinho and Juninho, Makelele was magnificent. His interceptions seemed prescient, his tackles remarkable in their anticipation. By contrast with Makelele's zip and zest, Ronaldo was back to his sluggish worst: he was clearly carrying more than just water. It was eight years since Ronaldo took to the pitch after having had a fit in his hotel the night before the 1998 final. His performance in that one-sided game was repeated here in Frankfurt with equal vapidity until a late cameo of that old acceleration won a free-kick right on the edge of the area.

Ronaldinho could not keep the free-kick down and the Samba smile was replaced with a rare grimace. He will get another chance to advertise his brilliance. For Zidane this tournament is a last, exhilarating roll of the dice.

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Features

Zidane's puff for freedom

Terence Blacker

127 words

7 July 2006

The Independent

English

Bald, ageing, un-beautiful and yet mesmerisingly brilliant, Zinedine Zidane is a sports hero like no other. In footballing terms he is a pensioner but, for game after game this summer, the French captain has run rings around the poutingpretty boys and dying-swan divas of other teams, before sending them, blubbing, back to their dressing-rooms.

Now this great man has won more sporting glory by apparently being photographed, shortly before the semifinal against Portugal, puffing on a cigarette. Could there be a connection between Zizou's determination to be his own man off the pitch and the grace he shows on it? Lovers of freedom and individualism will be cheering on this marvellous old man on Sunday.

Document IND0000020060707e27700024

Zidane delays his retirement party once again

Peter Berlin International Herald Tribune

Published: July 2, 2006

FRANKFURT Everyone in the world of soccer knows that Zinédine Zidane is near the end. But, despite promises from his last two opponents, no one at the World Cup has been able to drive him into retirement.

On Saturday night, in the last World Cup quarterfinal, Zidane out-tricked the tricksters of Brazil as the 1998 champion, France, beat the reigning champion, Brazil, 1-0. The victory continued France's World Cup dominance of Brazil. It also allowed Zidane to attend to some unfinished business.

This was the 54th time Zidane, France's chief creator, had played for his country alongside Thierry Henry, France's leading finisher. Yet Zidane had never made the pass that set up a goal for Henry. That changed in the 58th minute Saturday.

Zidane swung a free kick into the goal mouth. The pass may not have been aimed at Henry, but after all his team- mates missed it with their heads, Henry arrived unnoticed beyond the far post and volleyed the ball into the roof of the net. With France's veteran defense stifling Brazil's vaunted attack, that was all the scoring the French needed.

In the 1998 final, Zidane scored twice as France beat Brazil, 3-0, the last time Brazil had lost a World Cup game. But Zidane was a rising star then with almost a full head of hair.

Zizou turned 34 on June 23, and much of that hair is now gone. He has announced he will retire from soccer after the World Cup. Robinho, a clubmate at Real Madrid, was unwise enough to echo the Spaniards before the previous match and promise to send Zidane off into the sunset. Robinho, who is 22, was not fit enough to start. Zidane was.

In the very first minute, Zizou showed he meant business. He twice rolled the ball under the sole of his boot, suddenly spun and squirmed between two Brazilians and into space. He looked up and clipped the ball over the defense but too far even for the speedy Henry to reach.

A few minutes later, he wriggled into space again. This time his sliced pass would probably have been too long for Henry even if the speedy striker had been running, which he was not. Zidane gave Henry a stare, then walked toward him and shouted a few words.

When Zidane's next pass floated too long, Henry held his head in his hands and looked across the field at Zidane. All night Zidane's passing to everyone else was uncannily accurate, but for Zidane, as for so many defenders, it is a mystery where Henry will be.

Zidane, never the fastest, looked painfully slow again Saturday. In contrast, Cafú, a 36-year-old fullback, surged up and down the Brazilian right all evening. Yet Zidane dominated the game. His mastery of the ball remains absolute and mesmerizing. The Brazilians could catch him but not dispossess him. His juggling and trickery drew standing ovations just before halftime.

Carlos Alberto Parreira, the Brazilian coach, had rested the less celebrated of his overweight strikers, Adriano, choosing instead to support the other, Ronaldo, with two attacking midfielders, Kaká and Ronaldinho. Behind them, Juninho Pernambucano, who plays his club soccer for Lyon in France, came in at the center of a trio.

Perhaps the idea was to try to outmaneuver the massed French defense. The creativity of Zidane and the dash of Henry may be the image of the French team, but its heart is its back four and the two veteran midfielders who screen it: Claude Makelele and Patrick Vieira.

"The priority was to combat Brazil by retaining our shape, by being organized, by defending," Coach Raymond Domenech of France said at the postmatch news conference. "At the same time we wanted to pose them problems and disquiet them."

Zidane was behind all the problems France posed in the first half. His cute short free kick to Florent Malouda caused chaos in the Brazilian goal mouth that ended when Cafú belted the ball away for a corner. Brazil's best chance of the first half was a header over by Ronaldo. One measure of France's relative domination was that all three yellow cards went to Brazilians: Juan, Cafú and Ronaldo. France even drew a foul from Lúcio. In the 23rd minute, he broke the record of most minutes by an outfield player from the start of the tournament without conceding a free kick. Three minutes later he was whistled for grabbing Henry's shirt.

Juan's yellow card came right at the end of the half. Zidane slalomed away from two Brazilians in his own half. Henry pulled wide, and Vieira burst through the middle and onto Zidane's precise pass. As he neared the penalty area, Juan hacked him down. The French screamed for a yellow card and were rewarded.

The second half started with Zidane curling in a free kick from the right. Vieira headed wide, with Henry lurking dangerously just behind him.

Then in the 57th minute, a free kick from the other flank produced the goal. This time Vieira missed his header. Henry, for once anticipating correctly where Zidane would put the ball, did not have to break stride as he charged in and ripped a shot into the goal.

While teammates raced to congratulate Henry, Zidane saved his energy. He raised his arms, then turned and trudged back to the center circle, where he waited. There had been speculation that his differences with Henry had been personal as well as tactical. When Henry finally arrived they hugged hard like long-lost brothers - the star of the team and the would-be star of the team in harmony at last.

Zidane and Vieira, despite their occasional ill temper, and the serene central defender Lilian Thuram, offer constant reminders that it is possible to be a great soccer player and a mature human being. Henry, meanwhile, pouts and postures; nothing is ever his fault.

Still, this was Zidane's night. Four minutes after Henry scored, he almost had the goal that would have sealed the game and crowned his evening. As Franck Ribéry surged down the left, Zidane, seeing his chance, galloped into the center. Juan lunged at Ribéry's low pass, deflecting the ball just past his own post but preventing a tap-in for Zidane.

Brazil the champion was not done. Adriano came on and added more menace with his surging runs. Robinho then appeared and hooked a shot wide from in front of the goal. Ronaldo drew a desperate save from Fabien Barthez. In the dying seconds Ronaldinho curled a free kick just high.

At the other end, France counterattacked with menace. Henry set Ribéry free with a beautifully timed pass. Dida stopped him with a perfectly timed dive.

"There were some hot moments at the end," Domenech said. "The oldies are still here."

The elimination of Brazil, following Argentina's loss to Germany on Friday, means that there are no South American teams in the semifinals. The last time that happened was in 1982 in Spain, when the last four were Germany, Italy, France and Poland. This time, Portugal replaces Poland.

"It's a difficult moment to be eliminated when we were so close to the semifinals," Parreira said. "I did not prepare for this, and no one in our delegation prepared for this."

For Zidane, retirement must wait.

"We don't want to stop here," he said in a television interview after the game. "It's so great that we want to carry on."

In the 1998 final, Zidane scored twice as France beat Brazil, 3-0, the last time Brazil had lost a World Cup game. But Zidane was a rising star then with almost a full head of hair.

The second half started with Zidane curling in a free kick from the right. Vieira headed wide, with Henry lurking dangerously just behind him.

At the other end, France counterattacked with menace. Henry set Ribéry free with a beautifully timed pass. Dida stopped him with a perfectly timed dive.

"There were some hot moments at the end," Domenech said. "The oldies are still here."

"It's a difficult moment to be eliminated when we were so close to the semifinals," Parreira said. "I did not prepare for this, and no one in our delegation prepared for this."

For Zidane, retirement must wait.

"We don't want to stop here," he said in a television interview after the game. "It's so great that we want to carry on."

The Sunday Times July 02, 2006

Superb Henry answers critics

BRIAN GLANVILLE

The France striker’s performance in the win over Brazil should finally put pay to the claim that he fails to produce his club form for his country

THE wonderful goal with which Thierry Henry knocked out Brazil, moving with perfect power and technique on the right on to the long free kick sent over by the irrepressible Zinedine Zidane, surely established Henry beyond doubt as one of the major international players of his time.

That there was doubt has to be conceded. After his dazzling exhibitions for France when they won the European Championships in 2000, some of the virtue seemed to go out of this unquestionably gifted Arsenal player.

In common with the rest of the French team, he had a deeply disappointing World Cup, when so much was expected of them, as the holders, in Japan and Korea in 2002. He ultimately suffered the humiliation of getting himself sent off.

Four years earlier, he had only a bits-and-pieces role when France won the World Cup on home soil, though he was still then essentially an outside-right. It was as such that Arsenal bought him for £10.5m — Arsène Wenger, his mentor at Monaco, probably convinced him he was in fact a centre-forward.

At Highbury, he has indeed been a centre-forward par excellence, a marvel of speed of feet and thought, adept at moving out to the left flank, and doing incisive damage.

Yet for all his virtuosity at Highbury, he had another poor international tournament, despite a goal or two, for France in the European Championships two years ago in Portugal.

It looked initially in Germany that he would again fail to live up to such a great reputation. France, in his own image, began poorly, labouring against Switzerland and South Korea. Curiously, Zidane, who has surely become the outstanding, magisterial figure of this tournament, himself seemed out of sorts, too.

Indeed, when Zidane was suspended from the third French qualifying group game against Togo, and David Trezeguet was given a start by the much-criticised French coach, Raymond Domenech, it seemed that Henry would be fully functioning again. After all, it was with Trezeguet, in his days of young promise, that he formed such a lively attacking spearhead at Monaco.

But when the next game against Spain came, Henry was once more without Trezeguet, in a role which seemed ungrateful to him: a solitary spearhead up front, with no real shoulder to lean on, as he often had at Highbury with Dennis Bergkamp. Zidane was duly restored, despite his ice-cold relations with his coach, and Henry again was left to plough a lonely furrow.

Certainly he had his moments in a game which, for the French, was largely dominated by the extraordinary Zidane, abetted by the lively forays of the new French star, Franck Ribery.

Though Henry, in the first half against Spain, received one of Zidane’s inspired passes in room on the right and cut in from what was once his old position to send in a dangerous, low ball across the goal, somehow neither friend nor foe managed to make contact with it.

Yesterday, nothing more could have been asked of Henry, who selflessly immersed himself in this demanding position. Perhaps the measure of the trouble he caused the Brazilian defence was shown when he was so spitefully chopped down in the second half by the centre-back, Lucio.

Having scored his astonishing goal, Henry remained a danger. On 70 minutes, he almost set up a second goal, with a dangerous cross from the right that forced the Brazilian keeper, Dida, to dive desperately at the feet of Ribery. When Henry was eventually replaced on 85 minutes by Louis Saha, it was to deserved and rapturous applause.

Now, a second World Cup is surely within the possibilities of a French team which started so uneasily.

This time, if they do reach the final in Berlin, Henry will be out on the field from the start, rather than on the bench, as he was in 1998, and from where he watched Zidane win the match.

Paris diary

Jon Henley

Friday July 7, 2006

The Guardian

So les Bleus, as you might have noticed had you been in Paris on Wednesday night, are through to the final, despite the best efforts of Dominique de Villepin, whose very presence at the match was widely deemed to augur disaster. The country's most unpopular prime minister since the war was doubtless hoping his post-match TV appearance would help the French electorate grasp the obvious parallels between the position of their national team (barely 10 days ago, 76% of the population felt les Bleus were incapable of beating Togo) and that of their PM (barely 10 days ago, 84% of the population felt Dominique de Villepin was incapable of running France). Sadly, the French electorate appeared little interested in such pleasing conceits, preferring largely to get drunk and chant "Italie serre les fesses, on arrive à toute vitesse", which we will not translate because it is rude.

Will England's defeat make any difference to Tony Blair's prospects? What a ludicrous theory

Marcel Berlins

Wednesday July 5, 2006

Guardian

Within less than two days, I watched England and France play football (though not, as you may recall, against each other), saw the John Constable exhibition at Tate Britain and went to the Cezanne centenary exhibition in Aix-en-Provence. What a gift schedule for a columnist, I thought. What symmetry, and what an easy way into one of those complicated comparisons loved by commentators and irritating to everyone else. This one's a cinch. After all, is not Rooney the Constable of English soccer, and Cezanne the Zidane of Impressionism? Or indeed, the other way round? On the other hand, perhaps not.

The combined soccer-and-painting contest was an emphatic 2-0 triumph for France, the football for obvious reasons, the art because, apart from the obvious difference between a painter of genius and one of minor excellence, the Constable exhibition was such an unsatisfying event, for one particular reason. It was, admittedly, the first time that his large canvasses - his six-footers - had been shown next to the equally vast sketches he had made in preparation. As a result, the accompanying labelling was obsessed with pointing out how the final product had developed from the sketches. I felt, after a while, that I was not there to appreciate the artist, merely to spot the differences. At the Cezanne show, one just looked and marvelled. No explanations were needed.

France's World Cup win over Brazil has clearly, if only temporarily, lifted the cloud of pessimism and morosity that has dominated the nation for so long. But I have difficulty in accepting the theory being peddled that such a joyous event (to be added to if France win the cup) has any effect on the popularity of its politicians. The French are not stupid enough to think that Chirac and De Villepin are somehow responsible for the exploits of Zidane and Henry, and that the beleaguered prime minister will suddenly be seen in a better light as the goals keep coming.

Tony Blair, it was said, was fervently hoping for an English victory to reverse his, and the government's, growing unpopularity. How would it have done that, assuming England had done better? "Yes, he did a terrible thing taking us into the war with Iraq, but now that we've won a few football matches it doesn't seem so bad. I wasn't going to vote Labour next time round, but Gerrard's winning goal changes my mind." Unlikely.

Will the lack of success finally dash Blair's chances of being well thought of, or even give an electoral advantage to David Cameron? A ludicrous thought. Besides, I've seen no signs of a deep slump in national morale. Fed up, yes; cross with Eriksson or Rooney, yes. That's about it.

People keep battering me with the example that Harold Wilson lost the 1970 general election to Edward Heath just four days after England lost their World Cup quarter-final match against West Germany, 3-2. Factually true, but it's stretching it to believe that Wilson would have won if England had. And there are still many who believe that England's 1966 World Cup won Wilson that year's election. The slight difficulty with that argument is that the election was four months before the football.

Angela Merkel and Romano Prodi are alleged to be using their countries' successful World Cup campaigns to do more than just boost their own popularity. Each is accused of smuggling through unpopular laws while the attention of parliamentarians and the people is elsewhere. Not much of a tribute to democracy, that.

What a great fuss was made over the fact that the difficult Romanian diva Angela Gheorghiu was coming to the Royal Opera House to sing Tosca in a brand new production. And what a disappointment she turned out to be. I wasn't too surprised. I have seen her perform live in the past, not to my satisfaction. I didn't expect her Tosca to be wonderful, took no steps to see it, and was comforted by the near unanimity, among newspaper critics and opera-goers alike, that she wasn't quite up to it. The pre-opening hype that Gheorghiu was somehow about to inherit Maria Callas's mantle of Tosca greatness was shown to be absurd within a few notes of her opening her lungs.

But I'm fond of the Puccini opera, and last week went to the same, superb production - with not a Gheorghiu in sight. Instead, there was a "second cast", insultingly known in the trade as the B-cast, with Tosca sung by an American, Catherine Nagelstad, of whom I had not previously heard. She was terrific in every way.

I overheard a chap who had seen Gheorghiu the week before tell his companion that Nagelstad had been far better. But I did not read any reviews of her outstanding performance in the papers. There weren't any. The Romanian had captured not only all the anticipatory publicity, but all the review space as well. She sang in only five of the 12 performances, but received near enough 100% of the attention. Even had she delivered satisfaction - which she didn't - it would have been unfair.

My question is: how does the public get to know that Nagelstad is good? Obviously, the insiders are aware of her, or she would not have been asked to sing Tosca at all; and her CV shows that she has performed in many opera houses all over the world. That's not the point. The British opera-loving public, other than those who happened to be present at Covent Garden, most of them disappointed (at least initially) because they weren't quick enough to get tickets for Gheorghiu, is ignorant of her.

The basic difficulty is that newspaper critics these days rarely cover second casts. I'm not criticising them. It's not their fault. It used to be different, I'm told. Philip Hope-Wallace, for instance, one of the foremost opera critics of the 60s, always did so - and the Guardian always gave him the space. And it is space that is at the heart of the problem today. Few arts editors of newspapers would countenance two reviews of the same opera within a couple of weeks. As it is, many worthy opera and concert performances (which tend to fight for the same space) don't get reviewed at all. The move to tabloid-size papers has exacerbated the shortage of space for critics.

At the same time, critics are faced with a choice of more productions than ever before. How can they justify writing about the same one twice? Some try, but rarely succeed. I don't have an answer, but I do know that Catherine Nagelstad deserves better. So does the public.

· This week Marcel re-read, as he does every summer, The Leopard, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa: "One of the most evocative, poignant, elegaic and melancholic portrayals of lost love and lost values, and much shorter than Anna Karenina." He listened to a compilation of George Gershwin playing his compositions: "He's not always the best interpreter of his own music."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

The Times July 01, 2006

Why republic could see a Royal marriage

By Adam Sage

Having spurned the 'bourgeois institution', France's leading socialist couple are now considering its merits

AFTER 25 years of unwedded bliss, Ségolène Royal, the leading Socialist contender for the French presidential election, may enter the “bourgeois institution” of marriage.

Mme Royal said that she is considering a civil wedding with the father of her four children, François Hollande, who is head of the Socialist Party and himself an outsider for the presidency next year. The ceremony would be “strictly for family members”, she added in an attempt to distance herself from her biggest challenger, Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right Interior Minister who goes out of his way to be seen in public with his wife, Cécilia.

Mme Royal was questioned about her marital plans after the President of the French overseas territory of Polynesia, Oscar Temaru, offered to conduct her wedding in Tahiti. Journalists thought M Temaru was joking, but Le Figaro reported: “At end of the day, it would seem to be serious.”

M Hollande, who appears increasingly irritated by the rise of his “partenaire”, has made no comment. Mme Royal’s remark on a train to Paris after a political rally in Brittany stunned the Parisian chattering classes, for whom “Ségolène and François” symbolise the modern, urban family.

The couple, who are both 52, have lived together since they were students at the prestigious higher education institution L’Ecole Nationale d’Administration, in 1980, but, like 15 per cent of French couples, they have never tied the knot. Until recently, Mme Royal said that she never would.

Asked in 2004 whether she intended to marry M Hollande if she ran for the presidency, she replied: “Certainly not. I need my freedom and my autonomy.” Two weeks ago, in an interview with the French gay magazine, Têtu, she dismissed marriage as a bourgeois institution.

But an old French political adage what says “Hors mariage, point de suffrages (Outside marriage, no votes)” is perhaps playing on her mind.

Not only has France never had a woman as president, it has never elected an unmarried candidate either.

Mme Royal argues that French society is changing faster than most politicians realise and has become open and tolerant.

But although that is true of Paris and other big cities, where her civil status is unlikely to be a handicap and could reinforce her image as a break with the past, it is more debatable in rural France.

A wedding this summer could serve to calm concerns in the Catholic countryside about her candidacy.

French 'elephants’ muster to trample Royal

By Kim Willsher in Paris

(Filed: 02/07/2006)

Ségolène Royal, the chic and charismatic Socialist politician who is battling to become France's first woman president, has drawn yet another male rival into the fray.

Miss Royal, who has electrified politics since making clear her desire to run for the highest office in next year's election, already faces opposition from a string of fellow Socialists, who accuse her of moving too far to the Right.

Ségolène Royal

Now Lionel Jospin, the powerful former Socialist prime minister who was humiliated in the first round of the 2002 presidential election by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front leader, has hinted heavily that he, too, is prepared to do battle with Miss Royal.

His attempt to move back into the political limelight, after years of self-imposed exile, is seen as an attempt by one of the so-called "elephants" of the Socialist Party (PS) to thwart Miss Royal's hopes of winning the party nomination. Mr Jospin, 68, made his declaration on French television, saying he was "open" to the possibility of standing next year.

"If it appears that I am the best placed to bring together the Left, to reunite and take charge of the country, to exercise the office of president in the difficult situation France is in today, and to propose to the French people a way out of the crisis we are in, then I will ask myself the question," he said. Asked about Miss Royal, whom he is said to dislike, he described her as one of the "multiple talents" of the Socialist Party.

Faced with yet another competitor for her party's nomination, 52-year-old Miss Royal said the announcement "changed nothing".

"I'm not going to talk about the other candidates, I'm not going to criticise, I'm not going to comment. I respect their identity and their intentions," she said.

During a visit to Brittany immediately after Mr Jospin's declaration, she seemed happier discussing the possibility of marrying her boyfriend, François Hollande, who is also leader of the party, in a private ceremony this summer. The couple have been together for more than 25 years and have four children.

Pressed on Mr Jospin's possible candidature, she stuck to the line that she would stand if the party decided she was in the best position to succeed.

Lionel Jospin

"Things are less complicated than you think," she added. "We'll see in September what the citizens think and what party members think." About 200,000 PS members will make the final decision on who should be their candidate in a vote in November.

Mr Jospin would join a line-up of at least four other members of the Socialist Party to have announced their intention to stand as would-be candidates, such as Jack Lang, the former minister of culture. Some, including another former prime minister, Laurent Fabius, have made little secret of their dislike of Miss Royal. Many object that policy pronouncements that have won her support among voters - including sending persistent young offenders to "boot camps" and criticising the mandatory 35-hour working week - pander to the centre ground and are a betrayal of the party's principles.

If Mr Jospin stands, it will lead to a head-on clash between a man who represents the party's chequered past and the woman who is widely considered the Left's brightest hope.

Recent opinion polls put Miss Royal well ahead of rivals in her own camp and edging in front of her main opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, of the ruling Right-of-centre UMP party. Among voters as a whole, 42 per cent of those surveyed by Ipsos said they preferred Miss Royal to Mr Jospin, who gained just 22 per cent.

Robert Schneider, a political commentator at the Nouvel Observateur magazine said: "Clearly he thinks he's more capable than Ségolène Royal of resolving the issues in 2007. The question is, will the party members who will choose the Socialist candidate think the same way?"

Pierre Moscovici, a former Socialist government minister who supports Dominique Strauss-Kahn, another Left-wing candidate, said: "[Jospin] explained that he could be a candidate if circumstances required but I can't see what circumstances he's talking about."

Jean-Marc Ayrault, the president of the Socialist group in the French National Assembly and mayor of Nantes, told French radio: "Does Lionel Jospin hope to make a comeback as candidate to be president of the Republic? Evidently it seems the answer is 'yes'. Do the French hope for this? That's another question."

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Chic, brash Ségol�ne stirs up French race

As France gears up for 2007 presidential elections, Ms. Royal leads the polls.

By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

PARIS

Into the closed, gray, and overwhelmingly male world of French politics, a bombshell has dropped.

Topping the opinion polls for next year's presidential elections is a chic, 52-year-old mother of four who is bringing a whirlwind of fresh air to the ruling class in Paris and promising a new style of politics to voters tired of their scandal-ridden leaders.

Ségolène Royal, bidding to be the Socialist party's presidential candidate, has stirred up almost as much opposition from fellow Socialist leaders as she has among the governing party. But she has also struck a chord with ordinary people that could resound all the way to the Elysée Palace.

Ms. Royal "is different," says Stéphane Rozès, director of French polling group l'Institut CSA. "She doesn't seem trapped by doctrinal questions and people believe she addresses their problems."

To start with, she listens - a rare trait among French politicians whose lofty distance from everyday affairs is one reason why 76 percent of voters distrust them, according to a recent poll. Royal has made her website a forum for "internauts" to express their opinions on a range of issues, and she is incorporating the ideas she likes best in the online book she is publishing chapter by chapter to set out her platform.

"That's what modern politics is," she said in a recent radio interview. "It is citizens coming to grips with a vision of society, rolling up their sleeves, and trying to fulfill it."

Nor is she afraid to veer away from traditional Socialist policies. Last month, she struck out at the 35-hour workweek, the Socialist party's proudest achievement of the past decade. She also raised howls of criticism from her party colleagues by proposing that delinquent youths be sent to military boot camp, and that their parents be sent to parenting school.

"We need a return to the heavy hand," she declared, to "firmly reestablish a just order and long-lasting security." This is the sort of language used by the tough-talking Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the likely presidential candidate for the center-right UMP party.

But while Royal's rhetoric may make her the only leftist politician capable of beating Sarkozy, it has also earned her a reputation for being authoritarian - a tendency perhaps inherited from her military father. She seems to have turned that trait into an advantage, however, with her views on law and order. The Socialists lost the last elections largely because they were seen as soft on that front, and that issue has exploded onto the political scene again following the riots that shook Paris suburbs last fall.

Royal's foray into unfamiliar territory for a Socialist has paid off. Sixty-nine percent of the electorate supported the boot camp idea.

But this sort of heresy has raised the hackles of traditional party leaders, known as "elephants." (The elegant and slim Royal pointedly refers to herself as a "gazelle.") But it offers the prospect that Royal might modernize the French Socialist party à la Tony Blair and his reform of the British Labour Party.

The "Ségolène effect" may already be taking hold: since March, her party's membership has grown 60 percent and attracted more women than usual.

"She pulverizes the elephants," says Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist minister of health. "She makes them look out of date, old, obsolete, and sometimes ridiculous."

But though Royal cultivates the appearance of a newcomer, she is in fact a product of the French political system. She was educated at the elite "National School of Administration" (ENA), which trains the country's political cream; she worked as an aide to former president François Mitterrand, her mentor; she served in three cabinet posts, as minister for schools, the family, and the environment; and she is president of the Poitou-Charentes region - a post she won in 2004 by beating the protégé of then-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

Accusations from fellow party leaders that Royal is politically incoherent seem to carry little weight with voters. "Her pragmatism is seen as a promise," says Mr. Rozès. "Her talk of authority and standards is reassuring. In the midst of economic and political insecurity, people want moral security."

Nor is anyone holding it against her yet that she has steered clear of expressing opinions on big political, economic, or diplomatic issues, preferring to concentrate on the sort of social questions that touch peoples' lives directly.

"She is clear; she is direct, surprising, and represents another way of doing politics," says Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a former revolutionary firebrand and now a Green Party member of the European parliament. "She is a stroke of luck for the left because for the moment she is the only person capable of beating Sarkozy."

But she will have to fight off Socialist rivals first, including her partner (by civil union) and father of her four children, François Hollande, the party leader, who has presidential ambitions himself.

Before the party's 200,000 members vote in a primary next November, those rivals will likely do all they can to undermine her image as a fresh and distinctive voice by pointing out that she has followed a traditional career path for a politician.

"At the moment she is a romantic figure," says Rozès. "Everybody sees what they want to see in her. The campaign, when she will have to address the big issues, will be her moment of truth."

Madame La Président?

• Born in Senegal; one of eight children of a conservative French army colonel

• Mother of four and partner (bound by civil union) of French Socialist Party leader François Hollande, who also has his eye on the presidency

• Graduated with honors from France's elite school of public administration, L'École Nationale d'Administration

• Served as Minister of the Environment (1992-1997); Minister for Education (1997-2000); Minister of Employment (2000-2002)

• Author of four books, including "Le ras-le-bol des bébés zappeurs" (roughly translated as "The Dissatisfaction of the Channel-surfing Generation")

Sources: French Embassy; The Guardian, wikipedia

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Politics & Economics: French Presidential Hopefuls Play to Disaffection on Campaign Trail

By Leila Abboud and Christina Passariello

1108 words

3 July 2006

The Wall Street Journal

English

As french presidential hopeful Segolene Royal addressed 400 people at a public gym in Paris in late June, a supporter gushed that the petite brunette was even more beautiful in person than on television.

"You don't look so bad yourself," Ms. Royal flirted back, prompting cheers from the crowd of Socialist Party supporters.

At a rally in the southern city of Agen days later, France's other main presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, the country's interior minister, also played to his audience. As more than 6,000 supporters waited in a hangar, Mr. Sarkozy burst in, ran through the crowd and slapped high-fives with hundreds of people while music boomed in the background.

The theatrics of Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy, who both harbor hopes of succeeding President Jacques Chirac in April elections, mark a sea change in the staid world of French politics, dominated for decades by an elite that rarely tried to appeal directly to voters. Owing in part to its aloofness and a reluctance to force through difficult overhauls, the political establishment now must contend with problems such as unemployment and ballooning spending on social programs like pensions, education, and health care.

Trouble in France has consequences for the rest of Europe. French voters rejected the European Union Constitution last year, fearing a cascade of low-wage workers and a collapse of social-welfare protections. The country's next president might be crucial in helping, or thwarting, efforts to revive the 25-member bloc's integration process.

The unemployment rate in France is the highest in Western Europe, at 9.1% -- and more than twice that for people younger than 30. Yet while Spain loosened labor laws and Sweden overhauled pensions, France resisted change, taking pride in its model of worker protections, free schooling, universal health care and pensions. Millions protested in the streets this spring against a law that would make it easier to hire and fire young workers. The government eventually caved, and the measure was withdrawn.

When violent riots exploded in France's impoverished suburbs last year, the government promised new housing and jobs for the mostly immigrant and Muslim population. Seven months later, little has been done. The need for an overhaul is called "urgent" by 93% of French adults surveyed by research firm IFOP. Those surveyed cited cited labor, education and the justice system as most in need of repair.

This disaffection has led candidates to cast themselves as a break with the past. "Either we change nothing and we continue this way, or we change everything in the way we conceive of politics and we really build a new France," Mr. Sarkozy shouted in Agen.

Neither Mr. Sarkozy nor Ms. Royal is a newcomer. Mr. Sarkozy, 51 years old, heads the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement party. Ms. Royal, 53, is a member of Parliament for the Socialist Party.

At rallies, on television and in interviews, both are tossing out provocative policy ideas that put them at odds with their parties' traditional ideology.

At Agen, Mr. Sarkozy slammed chief executives who received huge paychecks even as their companies tanked, and he called for stock options for all workers -- pitting himself against the business community, some of the center-right's staunchest supporters. Ms. Royal has criticized France's 35-hour workweek as unfairly favoring managers while hurting lower-level workers by preventing them from working more to earn more money. The 35-hour week was the brainchild of a Socialist administration and is sacred to many party members.

Both drive their messages to voters. Ms. Royal holds weekly chats with supporters in hip Parisian cafes -- a ritual she calls "Cafe Segolene" -- and graces fashion-magazine covers.

Mr. Sarkozy shuns big cities for such smaller locales as Nimes and Agen, France's prune capital, in order to "meet a different public."

"They are integrating political marketing that they've imported from the U.S. and the U.K., and their personalities are very constructed," says Philippe Maniere, managing director of French think tank Institut Montaigne.

The maneuvering by Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Royal is forcing another dozen presidential hopefuls -- including former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin -- to start campaigning as well, though elections are nearly a year away.

In the past two years, Mr. Sarkozy has gained popular support with high-profile crackdowns on crime and a tough stance on immigration, two issues at the top of French concerns. He wants France to choose the immigrants it lets in, favoring those with skills or from certain countries, and supports more deportations.

"To those who don't love France, and ask everything of their country but don't give anything in return, I say, you do not have to stay here," Mr. Sarkozy said, drawing a standing ovation.

Mr. Sarkozy's blunt manner attracts many of his supporters. Last week, for example, he reiterated his controversial criticism of violent youth in Parisian suburbs, calling them "scum." "He dares to say more than other politicians," said Julien Gauthey, a 20-year-old student.

Ms. Royal has a warmer approach with her audiences and is focusing on education, family policies and the environment. In the eastern French region she represents in Parliament, she allowed high-school students to debate and vote on school budgets. Earlier in her career, as the minister dedicated to families and children, she made it possible for single parents to adopt. She has spoken in favor of allowing gay people to adopt and marry. As Ms. Royal told her crowd of admirers at the gym rally, "I think people are the best judges of their own situations."

---

What Voters Want

After a year of crises in France, political candidates including

presidential hopefuls Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal have begun

reaching out to voters on issues such as:

-- Jobs: France's unemployment rate of 9.1% is Western Europe's

highest, and reaches 21.9% for people under 25. Efforts to loosen laws

protecting workers have met with massive protests.

-- Justice: A botched case -- in which seven people accused of

sexually abusing children were jailed for three years before trial and

then acquitted -- has led to calls for justice system reform.

-- Education: France's higher education system has too many students

and too few resources, leaving graduates unprepared for the job market.

-- Security and immigration: Riots broke out last year in

impoverished suburbs populated largely by immigrants and minorities,

but promises of jobs and better housing have yet to be fulfilled. Some

voters want tougher restrictions on immigration.

In a tale of two economies, prudence lags behind the prodigal

By Ralph Atkins in Paris

Published: July 4 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 4 2006 03:00

Which economy will perform better this year - the French or the German?

The answer, surely, is obvious. Germany's engineering exports are firing on all cylinders (the finely crafted German kind). Business confidence is at a 15-year high. According to purchasing managers' indices published yesterday, June saw the largest monthly increase in manufacturing production since April 2000. A new chancellor has broken the political stalemate in Berlin and the football World Cup is raising spirits.

France, on the other hand, is close to a political standstill ahead of next year's presidential election. Just 9 per cent of its people think their country is on the right track, according to a Harris opinion poll for the FT last month. Attempts to liberalise the youth labour market this year led to riots on the streets and the 35-hour week remains a fixture. Companies have lost competitiveness compared with German counterparts and the French trade deficit is bulging.

There is just one problem with this eminently rational analysis. This year and next, French economic growth is expected to outpace that of its larger rival across the Rhine - just as it has in every year for the past decade. France's relative success reflects robust consumer demand, in stark contrast to the sluggish domestic performance of the German economy.

Élie Cohen, a member of the French prime minister's independent economic advisory panel, argues that Germany is misguidedly trying to emulate countries such as Ireland or Sweden, which have based economic turnrounds largely on global trade links. Germany's competitiveness drive has simply left people with less money in their pockets.

"Germany, which is a great nation, has decided to act as a small nation," says Mr Cohen. "It is strange to have this kind of supply-side policy and nothing on the demand side, and to accept that consumption, which is such an important driver in a modern economy, should be so low."

Mr Cohen says there is no reason why France should not return to the sort of growth rates it saw at the start of the decade - up to 4 per cent - when a weaker euro had boosted economic activity. The government in Paris would like to believe him: it has taken steps to boost consumer spending - allowing an early exit from savings schemes run by employers, for instance. Berlin has gone in the opposite direction: from January 1, shoppers will be hit by a three percentage point rise in VAT.

There is little sign that French consumer spending growth will dry up soon. Joblessness remains high but the unemployment rate is on a clear downward trend. "What is important for the climate is the dynamic - whether it is increasing or decreasing," says Christian de Boissieu, president of the prime minister's economic advisers. French house prices, meanwhile, continue to rise. Policymakers in Paris do not see the same direct link between the property market and consumer spending as in the UK, where "equity withdrawal", to fund a car or holiday, is popular. But rising property values have probably made the French feel wealthier - again in contrast to Germany, where prices have been static or falling for a decade. At the same time, competition in the banking sector is bringing the French economy closer to the Anglo-Saxon model. "We are . . . approaching the US in the sense that we're reforming the mortgage finance system, introducing gradually a system which is similar to equity withdrawal," says Mr de Boissieu.

In another contrast with Germany, the French savings ratio - the amount saved in relation to income - is falling. Mathieu Kaiser, economist at BNP Paribas, suggests this might reflect "the French preference for the present - rather than the German way of looking at the future". In other words, French consumers are saving less in order to sustain their current lifestyles, whereas Germans think about the longer-term benefits of saving for their pensions. The same cultural differences might explain the higher French birth rate: Germans think too hard about the costs of raising children, Mr Kaiser argues.

How much longer can France's good times last? In Paris even optimists worry about the relative weakness of smaller and medium-sized French companies in comparison with the German "Mittelstand", which has largely powered the export boom in Europe's largest economy. And while unemployment is falling, it remains high, indicating serious weaknesses in the labour market. There is frustration, too, that French exports are not faring better. Several factors are blamed.

The country tends to sell to slower-growing European markets, rather than fast-expanding emerging ones, while a lack of competitiveness and the failure of the French to think as internationally as their German neighbours are also cited as obstacles.

A more fundamental point, argues Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, is that consumption-led growth is "not a model for all eternity".

In contrast to Mr Cohen and others in Paris, he argues that Germany is right to look for inspiration from the smaller, but internationally oriented, economies in Europe.

Exports as a share of gross domestic product have reached about 40 per cent (compared with less than 30 per cent in France) - roughly the level they reached in Sweden a decade ago, he points out. Mr Gros is "pretty sure" that German growth will overtake that of France "over a five-year horizon".

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich countries' think-tank, is similarly dubious about France's reliance on consumer spending.It believes the country should improve the functioning of labour markets, show more fiscal discipline and boost competition, especially in service sectors.

Whether seemingly indefatigable French shoppers will heed such warnings is another matter.

Ralph Atkins

July 5, 2006

The Pour

In the World of Fine Wine, There'll Always Be a France

By ERIC ASIMOV

PERMIT me to speak briefly in praise of France.

Yes, France, the greatest wine producing nation in the world.

Don't look so shocked. I've heard about the Judgment of Paris, the famous blind tasting in which French and American wines went glass-to-glass in 1976, and the French lost. I know all about the greatness of California cabernets and shiraz from Australia, and I understand that the French lag in the clever global marketing of instantly recognizable brands of wine.

Nonetheless, no country comes close to matching France, either in setting demanding standards for its wine industry or in producing such a variety of consistently excellent wine. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and the Rhone go without saying, but those famous regions are simply the most visible. From Jurançon in the southwest to Jura in the east, from Nantes on the Atlantic to Alsace on the German border, France makes wines that are endlessly compelling and should be endlessly inspiring.

Why is it necessary for me to state what should be obvious? Because a prevailing attitude toward France and its wines, in the New World at least, seems stuck somewhere between pity and glee for an industry supposedly rotting from within.

New World producers and journalists like to jeer at the sacred French notion of terroir as a myth constructed to preserve French status in the industry, and they laugh at the rigidity of the French appellation rules, which dictate what French growers can plant, where they can plant it, and how they should tend the vines. The European Union's recent decision to spend millions of dollars in an effort to diminish a European wine glut by digging up vineyards and turning excess wine into ethanol contributed to a confused perception of industry-wide crisis. The perception springs from an oversimplification of the French wine business, and no doubt a bit of wishful thinking.

The latest chorus of American gloating was heard around the time of the 30th anniversary celebration of the Paris tasting, even as many of these same gloaters were lining up to pay record prices for the heralded 2005 vintage of Bordeaux. When French winemakers were understandably reluctant to participate in yet another re-enactment in May, American wine writers were quick to play the cowardice card. And when the event feebly played out, and the Americans won again, writers exulted.

"Sacré bleu! Make that red, white and blue," Linda Murphy wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle, which can perhaps be forgiven for boosterish support of an industry in its backyard. In maybe the unkindest blow of all, Hollywood is apparently considering a movie version of the original event, based on the book "Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine" (Scribner, 2005), by George M. Taber.

Maybe it's payback for years of supercilious French sneering at the American wine industry. Or maybe Americans just need to lash out to pump themselves up with competitive energy, like football players pounding their lockers in an adrenalin-fueled frenzy. Any way you look at it, American wine partisans have got themselves a punching bag and they call it France.

Business-oriented types look at the French wine industry as old and tired. Through rigidity, bureaucracy and lack of creativity, they say, once-dominant France clings to old and outdated ways, and can no longer compete with modern wine powers like Australia, the United States, Chile and South Africa.

Those sympathetic to France heave a sigh, shrug their shoulders and say, What can you do? Meanwhile, some of the harshest critics are among the French themselves, particularly growers and winemakers in less prestigious areas, or entrepreneurs who feel hamstrung by French wine laws.

Make no mistake. France's troubles, as far as the wine business goes, are many. Consumption at home has dropped precipitously as the culture that once prized the long lunch and the arduous construction of a meal has taken a route toward convenience foods, quickly gobbled. The quest for productivity in a globalized economy, no doubt, has also taken its toll on daytime consumption, while stricter drunken-driving laws have also had an effect. Troubled fortunes in the wine economies of Bordeaux and the Languedoc are well known, if not well understood. And France's share of the wine export market has tumbled as well.

What's crucial to understand is that France has two entirely different wine economies, and one should not be confused with the other. The first produces oceans of cheap, occasionally palatable wine, sold for immediate consumption under lowly appellations, like plain Bordeaux or Beaujolais, for example, rather than the more prestigious and more specific St.-Julien or Juliénas. This industry is indeed in a deep crisis, with many growers hurting badly. Historically, much of this wine was for domestic consumption, and this segment has taken the biggest hit as the market has shrunk. Producers who would like to sell these wines overseas say they feel hampered because they cannot compete against the cleverly branded bottles of New World producers, who often use winemaking techniques unavailable to French producers.

The other industry makes the middle to high-end wines, those sold around the world, consumed in restaurants and reviewed in publications like Wine Spectator. Producers like Sylvain Pitiot, who makes the seductive, voluptuous Clos de Tart, a grand cru Burgundy, are doing exceptionally well, regardless of how many gallons of French wine the European Union wishes to convert to fuel. Like Clos de Tart, much of the high-quality end of the business is prospering.

In many ways, the French A.O.C. laws, for appellation d'origine contrôlée, which protect quality at the top, are simultaneously responsible for the demise of the low end. In other words, the law that insures the meaning of St.-Julien by dictating what the wine is made of and how it is labeled can stifle the producer of ordinary Bordeaux, who might want to legally blend some syrah into the cabernet sauvignon, or call the wine by a cute, memorable brand name — not Yellow Tail, but maybe Red Head. But while a producer in the Languedoc might wish he could pull out all his grenache and replace it with syrah, a Burgundy producer like Mr. Pitiot would be appalled at the idea of somebody wasting precious pinot noir territory by replacing it with merlot.

It may be that both ends of the French wine industry can only work at cross purposes, with the Old World tradition of exalting specific place names struggling against the New World merchandising power of the brand name. For France to try to accommodate the low end by compromising the standards that have insured its high-end dominance might in the end be catastrophic for the whole industry.

"Europeans should realize they can't play that New World game," said Neal Rosenthal, an American wine importer who is devoted to the concept of terroir. "They're better off protecting what they have and making sure people better understand the reasons behind it."

Not that the standards can't be beneficially modified. In a recent column in Decanter, a British consumer magazine, Michel Bettane, the French wine critic, suggested that St.-Émilion would be a fine place to plant chardonnay, which is currently not permitted under A.O.C. rules. Maybe so. And as in any bureaucracy, a stultifying rigidity often makes rational decision making difficult. But on the whole, the A.O.C. rules do far more to protect greatness than to prevent it.

While a further decline on the bottom end of the industry will have a tremendous social and human cost in France, it won't undermine the greatness of French wines. It's possible to imagine that France will be joined at the top by countries like Italy and Spain, which produce distinguished, singular wines like Barolo and Rioja, and are working hard to improve the quality in distinctive regions that have long been ignored.

It's harder to imagine New World countries like the United States and Australia reaching the same pinnacle. Their leading wines, whether made of cabernet, chardonnay, shiraz or pinot noir, will always be measured against the French, and regardless of the blind tasting here or there, few people really take seriously the notion that the New World wines will surpass the French reference points on a large scale. What's more important about New World wines is how they have improved their quality on the low-to-middle ranks, to the point where today it is possible to say that very few bad wines are produced.

No, France will always set a standard, barring some sort of colossal, self-destructive move, like gutting its appellation rules. Should that happen, Americans and the rest of the world would then have great cause to jeer.

La renaissance des Bleus 01/07

2006-07-30T09:05:00.000+01:00

Beaucoup de commentaires élogieux cette semaine dans la presse anglo-saxonne pour l’équipe de France de football. Après le match France Espagne et avant le match France Brésil

Pour le New York Times (28/06) "les vieux Français ont retrouvé tout leur ressort dans un match qui a enfin rendu à cette Coupe du Monde sa beauté".

Le Guardian (28/06) parle de "la renaissance des Bleus". Le Times (28/06) estime que "Zidane est le footballeur le plus éminent de son époque".

Pour le Herald Tribune (28/06) c’est "Zidane la classe... Il a montré sa majesté".

Le Wall Street Journal (29/06) essaie d’aller au-delà de l’événement sportif proprement dit. "Ces derniers temps l’équipe de France n’allait pas bien écrit le Wall Street Journal comme la France elle-même affectée par la faiblesse de son économie et les divisions de son personnel politique"..."Mais on a vu là une autre France… une France confiante, ethniquement mélangée énergique et créative".

L’enthousiasme est un peu plus mesuré sur l’intervention télévisée de Jacques Chirac lundi soir. Le Daily Telegraph (27/06) parle d’une "intervention légèrement inutile". Le Financial Times (27/06) a été surpris par la tonalité des commentaires en France après l’intervention présidentielle. "Ce qui peut arriver de pire à un chef d’état écrit le journal des milieux financiers c’est le ridicule". Le titre du Financial Times "pour Chirac ridiculisé par les médias le cauchemar ne fait que commencer".

Aucune consistance idéologique

Dans ce même Financial Times (26/06) une réflexion sur le système politique français. Une réflexion qui part du dossier Gaz de France et de la décision de repousser la privatisation. "Dominique de Villepin est peut-être encore aux affaires écrit le Financial Times, mais il n’est plus au pouvoir. Et ce qui étonne ce journal c’est que ce soit l’UMP qui se soit opposée à la privatisation... C’est le grand défaut du système politique français écrit le Financial Times, les partis politiques n’ont aucune consistance idéologique. Ils ne sont que le véhicule personnel des candidats à la présidentielle. C’est particulièrement vrai de l’UMP écrit le Financial Times qui semble incapable de se positionner de manière durable sur l’éventail gauche droite et paraît toujours à la dérive. Ségolène Royal poursuit le journal est en train de dépasser Nicolas Sarkozy par la droite sur les questions de sécurité. De tels glissements pourraient être considérés comme du pragmatisme bienvenu. Hélas ils sont seulement le fruit d’un opportunisme personnel manifeste".

Le correspondant du Times (26/06) Charles Bremmer estime lui que Nicolas Sarkozy est en train de se repositionner en vue de son duel avec Ségolène Royal. "Après s’être présenté comme un libéral Monsieur Sarkozy a adopté une ligne plus modérée et un langage plus social le même que celui qui a porté Monsieur Chirac à la présidence".

"Lionel Jospin a une image de pasteur protestant austère", c’est comme cela que l’a vu le Financial Times (29/06) lors de sont intervention télévisée sur TF1. Le journal annonce qu’il va y avoir "une bataille entre Monsieur Jospin (virgule) un ancien trotskiste et Madame Royal la présidente de la région Poitou Charente et que ce sera la bataille entre un homme qui représente le passé du parti socialiste et une femme qui veut être l’avenir de la gauche française".

La gauche autodestructrice

Un article sur l’extrême gauche en France dans le Sunday Times (25/06) qui n’en revient pas que des millions de Français soutienne une extrême gauche qui "aussi pittoresque que cela paraisse prône encore la dictature du prolétariat". Le Sunday Times écrit : "depuis quelques années l’attrait du léninisme est de plus en plus grand au pays de Louis Vuitton". Le journal anglais pense même que l’extrême gauche peut "ruiner la candidature de Ségolène Royal" et pose la question : "la gauche française sera-t-elle autodestructrice au point de commettre les mêmes erreurs qu’en 2002 ?" Quant à savoir pourquoi la France est le seul pays d’Europe à avoir une extrême gauche puissante le Sunday Times écrit que "la France est tout simplement un pays plus à gauche que les autres un pays où même les gens de droites sont plus à gauche que les travaillistes britanniques".

Newsweek (27/06) propose un dossier sur les villes en plein boom dans le monde. Et il y a deux villes en plein boom en France. Montpellier "un modèle de décentralisation urbaine" et Toulouse qualifiée par Newsweek de "cité ancienne devenue la ville multinationale".

Enfin les départs en vacances. Le correspondant du Daily Telegraph (26/06) donne quelques conseils pour les Anglais qui viennent en vacances en France. "Si vous devez dormir en route ne réservez pas. Choisissez un hôtel dans une petite ville le long de l’autoroute et commencez à chercher à 18H. Allez seulement dans les restaurants qui vous ont été recommandés par des amis ou par un guide et n’oubliez pas que les péages d’autoroute en France sont horriblement chers ".

Copies des articles cités le 1er juillet 06

2006-07-30T09:04:00.000+01:00

June 28, 2006

France 3, Spain 1

France's Old Men Show Some Spring in Their Step

By NATHANIEL VINTON

HANOVER, Germany, June 27 — At some point Tuesday night, whatever magic spirit had made Spain the irresistible force of the 2006 World Cup seemed to leap into the bodies of the French national team, which had been a somewhat immovable object until then.

France advanced to the quarterfinals with a 3-1 victory in a match that restored some beauty to a tournament marred by anarchic grappling for the referees' attention.

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, France's old master, Zinédine Zidane, destroyed the delicate balance. He set up one goal and pounded home another, sending France into a game Saturday against the tournament favorite, Brazil.

In the 83rd minute, Zidane lofted a free kick that found midfielder Patrick Vieira, whose header off the body of Spain's Sergio Ramos broke a 1-1 tie.

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.

Spain opened the scoring in the 28th minute when David Villa converted a penalty kick. France tied the score in the 41st minute on a goal by Franck Ribéry.

"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 Spain, which had been one of the tournament's more sensational teams, propelled forward by gifted young players like Villa, Fernando Torres and Cesc Fábregas.

Older players were certainly doing their part, but Spain's vibrant new generation seemed unburdened by the country's history of World Cup disappointments. The team's best World Cup result, however, remains fourth place in 1950.

"There are very young players in this team who must learn lessons from matches such as these," said Spain's coach, Luis Aragonés, who yelled and gesticulated so emotionally at one moment that the referee asked him to move back to the bench.

At that point several French players jeered at Aragonés, who in 2004 was caught on camera making a racist remark about France's Thierry Henry. Aragonés took his seat, but he was back at the sideline within a minute. It was his first loss since taking over as coach in 2004.

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 France's experience that won out Tuesday. Zidane was on the bench for France's previous game, against Togo, sitting out a suspension. He announced his impending retirement in April, so this could have been the final game of his career.

"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 Italy and Spain. But he earned his renown wearing the French uniform, leading the national team to victory in the 1998 World Cup by scoring twice in the final against Brazil.

After Tuesday's game, his teammates and coach mentioned July 9, the date of this year's final in Berlin.

"We haven't set ourselves a limit," Vieira said. "We're improving every game, and I'm sure that we can improve against Brazil as well."

Vantage Point: Zidane shows his majesty in leading France

Rob Hughes International Herald Tribune

Published: June 28, 2006

HANNOVER, Germany We wondered when it would come, or whether it would come.

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 Spain goaded the French captain Tuesday by declaring that the Spanish had come to retire Zidane.

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 Spain's youth did seem to wash over the aging French.

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 France. There were intriguing personal duels: Vieira, the former Arsenal midfield enforcer, against Cesc Fábregas, his young replacement, was one; Claude Makelele shadowing Raúl everywhere.

It was tight, it was intense, but never dull, and a world away from the insane brawling between Portugal and the Netherlands on Sunday night.

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, Spain grew in momentum, France resisted, and we started to think youth would be served.

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. France started it with a flourish, and when Florent Malouda tried to loop the ball over Casillas, it looked as if his judgment was impeccable. It is a consummate skill to clear a goalkeeper this way, but Casillas sprang through the air to claw the ball away.

Now Luis Aragonés, the wily fox of Spain, threw on two substitutes. As early as the 53rd minute, the coach withdrew his captain, Raúl, and Villa and instructed their replacements, Joaquín and Luis García, to give Spain more movement.

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 France the game.

Henry had run into the back of Puyol. Spain thought it was the force of Henry; France said the defender had deliberately blocked the run of Henry. The referee gave France the benefit of the doubt and gave Puyol a yellow card for obstruction.

"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 Hannover thinking this was their year. How could it not be? Rafael Nadal rules on the tennis court, Fernando Alonso is supreme in a racing car, and all of Spain had fantasized about the World Cup.

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 France to the quarterfinals on Saturday, against Brazil.