Thousands of people massaged Monday evening in front of the Hôtel de Crillon, in Paris, to greet the players, just returned from Qatar.
by Raphaëlle Bacqué
Consolation. A delicious and soft balm to pose on the injury of defeat. This is a crowd that awaits you with fervor. Monday, December 19 in the evening, when the French team returned from Doha, after six hours of flight, the Blues were able to measure how much they remained loved by their supporters, despite this third stars that were missed at a hair, during the final of World football in Qatar.
From landing in Roissy, the captain of the plane carrying the players, their families, as well as the first lady Brigitte Macron, had hung a French flag with the cockpit windshield. But it is at the entrance to Paris, along each boulevard, and especially at the arrival of the Place de la Concorde Players’ bus, around 9 p.m., that we could see and hear love of their audience.
Some 15,000 to 20,000 people have gradually massaged in front of the Hôtel de Crillon, sometimes arrived at 4:30 p.m. Many young people, most often Parisians, most of whom were barely Born in 1998, during the first big victory of the French team, wrapped against the wet cold, and screaming their admiration. Some have mounted on the parapet of the obelisk and the metro stations singing the Marseillaise. There are red smoke, people who jump and dance. It feels like the stadium, as if those who have not made the trip to Qatar, finally offered the atmosphere of this exceptional competition.
incredible fervor
Is this that, magnificent losers? Are these champions that we love, despite the advances, because they made you vibrate?
On the Crillon balcony, after about twenty minutes, Didier Deschamps and Hugo Lloris finally come out. Soon joined by the entire team. At the foot of the splendid facade of the luxury hotel, Christmas trees shine with a thousand lights. If there was his face, dreary and closed of Kylian Mbappé, nothing would indicate the defeat of Sunday against Argentina. The star of the French team – “He is our king, our president,” said a supporter – is the first to leave the balcony, as if, he who has so much the spirit of competition, n ‘had still digested to have seen this victory escape him.
“Thank you the Blues”, it is however what we intend to go up the crowd. Not a whistle. Not a reproach. What enthusiasm and vasts. So, Olivier Giroud and Antoine Griezmann, aware of this incredible fervor, applaud among the last this audience at least as deserving as his champions.