Down on the Rue St Honore, just up from the Louvre, it was business as usual. The woman who had just stepped out of the white limousine wanted her regular manicure job. Armed with designer clothes, expensive suntan and oh so elegant ways, Madame gave the impression that the only "Cup" she would know anything about would be of the exotic ceramic variety, perhaps Deruta.

It would be stretching it a bit to say that downtown Paris yesterday was bursting with World Cup fever. True, one or two Brazilian fans complete with yellow shirts could be spotted in and around the Comedie Francaise. True, too, your correspondent was taken unawares by the sight of kilted Scottish fans marching past the Pompidou Centre in resolute and sober fashion through the evening rain two days ago.

The truth is that, so far at least, these World Cup finals have been more than easily absorbed by cosmopolitan Paris. You could pass through and, were it not for the soccer-related advertising on the metro walls, you would never know that the world's greatest soccer show had come to town. French soccer star, Michel Platini, now the Joint President of the CFO (French Organising Committee) is not surprised. For months now, he has been telling people that there is a good reason why his compatriots are not all of a Latin fervour about "La Coupe Du Monde". France, says Platini, does not need the World Cup to prove anything to anyone. Vous avez compris, Hooh.

Platini is right, of course, but yesterday there were signs that gallic indifference was beginning to crack. No less august a journal than the French daily Le Monde actually published a World Cup supplement. Being Le Monde, it dealt with the matter in the serious manner you might expect, giving an overview of the history of football as well as explaining the rules and terminology. Perhaps, Le Monde's most interesting item, however, was one taken from Spanish daily El Pais, a report which provided scientific proof that a linesman has a one in two chance of getting it right when he rules an offside. At great length, the article argues that you cannot look in two different directions at the same time (i.e. at the player who makes the pass and at the one who receives it).

The indifference did, too, break yesterday evening with a World Cup parade in downtown Paris. Funny looking, Japanese cartoon style figures wearing silly paper hats pranced around Pont Neuf and the Arc de Triomphe. It looked suspiciously like the supporting act at EuroDisney. We did not much like it at EuroDisney and we liked it even less on the Champs Elysee.

Nor did commuters on the metro much like it either when they were told on arrival at Concorde that they could not leave the station but merely change trains. A thousand and one Zut Alors, or words to that effect, greeted the cheery announcement.

The stations had been closed for logistical rather than security reasons but their closure, unwittingly, provided the first glance of the tournament's security arrangements. Seven thousand policemen and 2,000 soldiers will be on duty over the next month, preparing to thwart either Islamic fundamentalists or English hooligans - some choice.

For the time being, however, the security presence is discreet with only large numbers of police on the metro (a terrorist target three years ago) indicating anything out of the ordinary. Here's hoping it remains that way. As for the football, the time has come - As the newspaper ad urges, Entrainez-vous a shooter. (Funny, "shooter" was not included in my old Harraps grammar - ah well).

Que la fete commence!