France: The dream is over. France's World Cup dream smashed to bits last night, and with it the brief respite in the country's troubles.
On the Champs-Élysées, crowds stood for several minutes in stunned silence. Then young people began rolling up their homemade tricolour flags, and headed for their cars or the metro. A few fired smoke-bombs and rockets, but the heart wasn't in it. The television vans turned off their generators and began to pack up.
"I'm sad. I really thought we could win," said Pierre Burnet (45), the doorman at the Sofitel.
"I'm sorry France lost, but at least there will be fewer people on the Champs-Élysées," said a policeman. The interior ministry had deployed an extra 4,000 police officers in anticipation of violence.
In two-and-a-half hours of almost unbearable suspense, most agreed the turning point came in the 109th minute, when Zinédine Zidane, the French captain, inexplicably head-butted an Italian player and was sent off.
"Ô non!" the crowds in the bars groaned in unison. "Merdre!" cried the man to my left. "What an idiot!" said the one to the right. "What an exit! I can't believe it. This is his last match and he does that!" said another. At this point, with the best three French players - Zidane, Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera - eliminated, few held much hope.
Perhaps the French had tempted fate by celebrating too hard, too early. All afternoon, cars sped down Paris boulevards, waving flags and honking horns. In a country where blatant shows of nationalism are frowned upon, there were, it seemed, only three colours in France: blue, white and red.
I met Nasser Rehab and his girlfriend Khadra Chemali, both 21, in the Pizza Pino on the Champs-Élysées where they were preparing to watch the match. Like their idol Zidane, both are the children of Algerian immigrants. Both had "Zizou" written on their foreheads. "If France wins, it's the banlieue [ suburbs] that wins," said Rehab. "If France loses, I'll leave this flag on the ground and I'll weep."
President Jacques Chirac maintained his lunch invitation to the French team at the Élysée Palace today and they are to be given a victory parade down the Champs-Élysées. But Zizou's exit has been tarnished, and the only thing the vast majority of Frenchmen agreed upon has slipped through their fingers.