French captain Marcel Desailly led a chorus of calls from his World Cup winning team-mates to vote for French president Jacques Chirac in the second round of the presidential election on May 5th and stop far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen from winning.

Le Pen, who stunned the French political establishment by beating Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the first round of voting last Sunday to oust him from the race, has never been a friend of the current French side.

His most infamous attack on them came in 1996 when he said several of them were not even French and some could not or would not sing the national anthem, the Marseillaise.

However, Ghanaian-born Desailly said the fact the squad came from different cultural backgrounds was a strength. "The strength of the French team is its multi-racial mix," he said. "It is also what makes the whole of France strong."

Desailly, one of the more eloquent footballers of his generation, then launched a fierce attack at Le Pen and his party. "Le Pen's party, the National Front (FN), is a fascist party and he is an aggressive and intolerant person, and his views are directly the opposite to mine.

"It is imperative to do everything possible to block his path to power. I hope that on May 5th the French people assume their responsibilities and return to the real world by voting against Le Pen because democracy is at stake here," he added.

Desailly admitted that fears over crime in French society had obviously had an effect on the election but said it should not benefit Le Pen. "The French people wanted to deliver a message and the government should take note of it, notably about crime. That is one problem that one cannot deny exists but Le Pen must not benefit from that," he added.

Desailly's predecessor as French captain, Didier Deschamps, who lifted the World Cup trophy in 1998, said he was deeply saddened by the first-round results. "One of the values that I respect the most is tolerance. The ideas of Le Pen fly in the face of that," said Deschamps, who is now coach at Monaco. He refused to say if he had cast his vote last week but added: "I will vote in the second round, that's for sure." His former French team-mate Bernard Lama echoed his call. "We have to eradicate Le Pen," he said.