After having covered as much distance as Kylian Mbappé on Sunday in the final (Opta validates this stat’), 20 minutes was finally able to reach the Place de la Concorde on Monday evening, to witness the return of the Blues from Qatar to some 50,000 French supporters. In the mild December night, there were children, flags, young people, who had come in large numbers to greet Grizou and others: “It’s the holidays and there was no more room at the cinema for Avatar, smiles Jules, 17, who came with his group of friends. And then, all the same, it was beautiful what they did until the half.
On the other hand, no trace of any Messi fan on the well-stocked square, unlike Sunday when the Argentine supporters were well scattered in the bars of the capital in the middle of the tricolor jerseys. “Finally, it’s still good phew this poster of Ronaldo and Messi in front of the square”, exclaims Clara, who came with Antoine, her boyfriend, and who probably did not expect such a crowd, nor to this huge shot on the Madeleine which sees the two football stars compete in chess, on a Louis Vuitton trunk. “It’s really weird to ask the Blues to come here, and to relive their nightmare with the head of Messi”. Don’t panic on that side because given the delay, the selection bus had to make a big detour to avoid the photo!
“Even on your shoulders, Dad, I don’t think they’ll see me”
Announced around 8:30 p.m., the vice-world champions have indeed made themselves desired. At 9:15 p.m., Louis and his roommates began to express some doubts. “What are we really doing here? Then Valentin who takes care of the blanquette, it’s going to be too dry. Late to the rally as well as to the marking”, ironically one of them. Louis summarizes the general state of mind well: “we couldn’t see ourselves not coming because if that had been the case, we would have regretted not being there”. The first “Allez les bleus” and other attempts at clapping allow them for a time to forget their empty stomachs.
For Amir, 9, and Tiago, 7, both dressed in Kylian Mbappé’s Paris jersey, the wait doesn’t matter. A fear all the same for Tiago who slips to his mother. “Do you think the bus is going to pass through people? And they will be able to see us too? “. Concern quickly raised by maternal common sense and by the arrival, finally, of French footballers on the balcony of the Hôtel Crillon. That is to say a good hundred meters from its position. “Even on your shoulders, Dad, I don’t think they’ll see me.”
fireworks and Freed from Desire as a welcome
While Amir’s mother pulls her young son by the sleeve, the boy proudly tries to follow the rhythm of the clapping launched from the distant balcony where we perceive through the zoom of the telephones, the silhouettes of Olivier Giroud and ‘Antoine Griezmann. Very disappointed not to distinguish his idol, Amir wonders aloud if “Kylian is better since yesterday? He still has time to win plenty of world cups.
Then, amid the smoke bombs, fireworks and Freed from Desire alternating with the Marseillaise, the “Thank you the Blues” resound in all the assistance. “We can say that we were there, slips Anna to her friend, sneaking between people. Even if we couldn’t approach them and try to console them. For Louis and his friends, no state of mind at that hour. “We wait a long time and they show up on a balcony at the other end and that’s it? It’s disappointment, there! » A taste of unfinished work reminiscent of the day before perhaps?