World Cup:In the wake of France's humiliating exit from the World Cup, Nicolas Sarkozy has organised a meeting with striker Thierry Henry to find out exactly what went wrong in South Africa.
Henry has been accused of leading the player’s strike along with captain Patrice Evra at the weekend that that plunged the national set-up into crisis. Last night’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of South Africa ensured France would return home in disgrace.
Sarkozy had already ordered French sports minister, Roselyne Bachelot, to meet with manger Raymond Domenech, Evra, and the French Football Federation (FFF) president, Jean-Pierre Escalettes.
Now the French president has summoned Henry for a personal explanation of the national team’s disastrous campaign. Elysee Palace officals said one hour had been set aside for the meeting.
The French press accepted this morning they have become a “laughing stock” as their campaign floundered on and off the pitch and most have hailed France’s World Cup exit and the end of the Domenech era as a relief.
Most newspapers reacted with a mixture of anger, sorrow and irony. Much of the blame was pinned on Domenech, but the players and the French soccer federation also came in for considerable criticism, with widespread calls for a new broom to sweep clean the domestic sport.
L'Equipe
Under a front page banner headline "The End of a World", France's premier sports daily wrote: "This is an unbelievable rout for Raymond Domenech ... To take people for imbeciles might be an amusing game, but you have to know when to stop. Provocation is a subtle art and no doubt a form of intelligence, but only if it is not stained by haughtiness and arrogance."
The paper also urged the government to shake up the French soccer federation "so that it is no longer in the hands of these puppets".
France Soir
"The image of 'Les Bleus' both on and off the field has been catastrophic. In 11 days of competition, Raymond Domenech's gang has succeeded in becoming the laughing stock of the entire world, a mix of arrogance, incompetence, a lack of talent and professionalism."
Liberation
"This tragi-comedy has finally come to an end ... It goes without saying that those who are responsible have to face up to the consequences of this historic fiasco for French soccer ... The collapse of the French team is also a failure for the cynicism which poisons football like so many other professions."
Le Parisien
"The French team's apocalyptical World Cup ends in a manner that is both desperate and nightmarish -- a logical conclusion to an attitude and a game that was unworthy, shameful and revolting. Thanks guys, you have ruined this nascent summer for the French who were counting on you to help them forget their daily worries. ... (Domenech's) disappearance from the footballing landscape is the only good news of the day."
La Montagne
"It is a cavalry where the death knell has tolled for the fiasco of a generation of mercenary, fragile French players, who are out of step with the reality which encircles them."
Sud-Ouest
"Rarely has defeat been greeted with such relief. As if it was urgent to put an end to this cavalry, to lance this unbearable abscess, to no longer offer this spectacle to the rest of the world and move on to something else. ... It would have been better if Les Bleus had never gone to South Africa. Without doubt, the descent to hell has not yet finished."
Dernieres Nouvelles D'Alsace
"This failure is first and foremost the story of millionaire stars aged 24 and 25, the story of kids who grew up too quickly, far from real problems. Youths with outsized egos who were gathered together for months in a claustrophobic environment."