PARIS: The World Cup-winning French team returned home to a heroes’ welcome on Monday, parading down the Champs-Elysees as hundreds of thousands of cheering fans gave a raucous welcome to the country’s newest idols.
France overcame a determined Croatia to win 4-2 in Sunday’s final in Russia, with teenager Kylian Mbappe applying the coup de grace and cementing his place as a new global superstar at the age of just 19.
Millions of fans in France then celebrated into the night, honking car horns and flying the tricolor flag while the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe were lit up in the national colors of blue, white and red.
Crowds began converging early Monday on the Champs-Elysees, the gathering point for all national celebrations, to catch a glimpse of a returning squad which has captured the country’s imagination.
“We’re so proud of this team, they have truly become our players,” said Priscilla Lagneaux, 28, as she waited under a wilting sun on the avenue. “We had to see them.”
As the celebrating players descended on an open-air bus under heavy police guard — some of the 2,000 officers deployed in the capital — nine jets from the Patrouille de France, the air force’s acrobatic unit, did an honorary flyover trailing blue, white and red smoke.
Commentators have focused on the outpouring of patriotism and sense of national unity created by the multi-ethnic French team, many of whose stars including Mbappe and Paul Pogba hail from deprived and often overlooked suburbs of Paris.
Laurent Joffrin, editor of the leftwing Liberation newspaper, said they had lived up to the ideal of “the republic that we love: united and diverse, patriotic and open, national without being nationalist.”
After leaving the Champs-Elysees, the players quickly changed into custom-made blue suits before being welcomed at the Elysee Palace by President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, who were also decked out in blue for the occasion.
Macron has already promised the Legion of Honour for the victors’ “exceptional services” to the country, an award already given to the legendary team which won France’s first World Cup title in 1998.
The first couple then posed with the team as they sang the Marseillaise national anthem and waved scarves for a joyous group photo, before heading inside for a private meeting.
“Thanks to you all!” Macron told the team after gathering again outside. “This team is beautiful because you are united!“
Despite a voice nearly failing him, Pogba then proved himself a showman off the field as well as on by leading the guests in an impromptu celebratory rap punctuated by “Allez les Bleus!“
“It’s true, we went on the pitch, and we said, We’re going to crush them all!” he said.
Nearly 3,000 guests have been invited to the reception in the Elysee gardens, including around 1,000 youths from local football clubs such as Bondy, the gritty Paris suburb whose towering housing projects produced Mbappe.
“We’re going to say thank you!” said Sacha, one of the young players at the palace. “I don’t regret not going on vacation this summer.”
Afterwards guests will be treated to the beats of DJ Snake, who has worked with pop stars including Lady Gaga and is part of the Pardon My French collective of French DJs.
Macron had already celebrated with the team on Sunday — even doing “dab” dance moves with players in a video that has gone viral — after attending the final in Moscow.
Some analysts believe the 40-year-old centrist will benefit from the feelgood factor sweeping France, with Macron able to show a common touch after months of criticism from his opponents that he is distant and elitist.
Later the team will attend a dinner in their honor at the posh Hotel du Crillon.
In Paris, the metro system has temporarily renamed six of its stations in honor of the key players, with the Victor Hugo stop — named after the famed 19th-century writer — becoming Victor Hugo Lloris after the team’s goalkeeper.
Two stations were rebaptised in tribute to Deschamps, who captained the national side to its first World Cup victory, won on home soil in 1998.
“There are two things that matter — one is that these 23 players are now together for life, whatever happens, and also that from now on they will not be the same again, because they are world champions,” a champagne-soaked Deschamps said Sunday.
Macron will be relieved that joyous and occasionally chaotic celebrations across France on Sunday night passed off without any major incident following a string of terror attacks in France since 2015 that have claimed nearly 250 lives.
There were 292 people arrested nationwide and isolated clashes between police and rowdy crowds in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
For Croatia, a country of just four million people, the loss was bitter but their fans took solace in the best run in the nation’s history, which featured a stunning win against Argentina and a semifinal victory against England.
“Thank you, heroes! — You gave us everything!” read the Sportske Novosti front page. “’Vatreni’ (the “Fiery Ones” in Croatian), you are the biggest, you are our pride, your names will remain written in gold forever!” the newspaper said.
France gives World Cup winners a heroes’ welcome home
France gives World Cup winners a heroes’ welcome home
- Commentators have focused on the outpouring of patriotism and sense of national unity created by the multi-ethnic French team
- Some analysts believe the 40-year-old centrist Macron will benefit from the feelgood factor sweeping France
Larry David teams with the Obamas for HBO US history sketch show for the nation’s 250th
LOS ANGELES: Larry David will bring his grumbly sensibility to US history in a team-up with Barack and Michelle Obama for an HBO sketch show, the network announced Thursday.
The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator and “Seinfeld” co-creator will act as executive producer, writer and star of the limited series consisting of six half-hour episodes, produced by the Obamas’ company, Higher Ground.
The show marks the 78-year-old David’s return to HBO just over a year after the end of the 12th and final season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
His “Curb” showrunner Jeff Schaffer will co-write and direct episodes.
HBO did not give a premiere date, but the show is meant to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary next year.
The series doesn’t have a title yet but it has a promotional logline: “President and Mrs. Obama wanted to honor America’s 250th anniversary and celebrate the unique history of our nation on this special occasion. ...But then Larry David called.”
And statements from some of the principals suggest the tone it will take.
“Once ‘Curb’ ended, I celebrated with a three-day foam party. After a violent allergic reaction to the suds, I yearned to return to my simple life as a beekeeper, harvesting organic honey from the wildflowers in my meadow,” David said. “Alas, one day my bees mysteriously vanished. And so, it is with a heavy heart that I return to television, hoping to ease the loss of my beloved hive.”
In his statement, Barack Obama said, “I’ve sat across the table from some of the world’s most difficult leaders and wrestled with some of our most intractable problems. Nothing has prepared me for working with Larry David.”
The Obamas got into the entertainment business by launching “Higher Ground” in 2018, saying they wanted to raise the prominence of new, diverse voices and expand the range of conversation in the industry. They signed production agreements with Netflix and Spotify soon after. Their involvement has had a high profile in some productions, but they’ve kept more of a background role in others.
Their shows and films have included the Oscar-winning documentary “American Factory,” the kids series “Waffles + Mochi,” and the movies “Rustin” and “Leave the World Behind.”
David, known for his sitcoms and stand-up, has some experience in sketch work. He was a writer and star on ABC’s “Saturday Night Live” knockoff “Fridays” in the early 1980s, and later wrote briefly for “SNL” itself.
Trump praises Liberian leader on English — his native tongue
- “It’s beautiful English. I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well,” Trump said after hearing Liberia's President Joseph Boakai speak
- Boakai, like most Liberians, speaks English — the country’s official tongue and lingua franca
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump complimented the president of Liberia Wednesday on his English-speaking skills — despite English being the official language of the West African nation.
Trump was hosting a White House lunch with African leaders Wednesday, and — after brief remarks from President Joseph Boakai — asked the business graduate where he had picked up his linguistic know-how.
“Thank you, and such good English... Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated?” Trump said.
Boakai — who, like most Liberians, speaks English as a first language — indicated he had been educated in his native country.
He was facing away from the media, making his countenance hard to gauge — but his laconic, mumbled response hinted at awkwardness.
Trump, who was surrounded by French-speaking presidents from other West African nations, kept digging.
“It’s beautiful English. I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well,” he said.
US engagement in Liberia began in the 1820s when the Congress- and slaveholder-funded American Colonization Society began sending freed slaves to its shores.
Thousands of “Americo-Liberian” settlers followed, declaring themselves independent in 1847 and setting up a government to rule over a native African majority.
The country has a diverse array of indigenous languages and a number of creolized dialects, while Kpelle-speakers are the largest single linguistic group.
Boakai himself can read and write in Mendi and Kissi but converses in Liberia’s official tongue and lingua franca — English.
Houses made from rice: Kyrgyzstan’s eco-friendly revolution
KYZYL-KIYA, Kyrgyzstan : It may look like an ordinary building site but Akmatbek Uraimov’s new house in Kyrgyzstan is being built with blocks of rice.
The eco-friendly alternative to conventional construction materials is booming in the Central Asian country, which is vulnerable to global warming and grapples with water shortages.
Before selecting the unorthodox material, Uraimov had researched other options, but concluded that the relatively cheap blocks made from rice husks were his best option.
“In terms of insulation, cost, as well as for builders, it turned out to be convenient,” said Uraimov, who lives in the village of Kyzyl-Kiya in southern Kyrgyzstan.
“People didn’t know about it. Now they see it, they are interested, they call,” he told AFP.
Nursultan Taabaldyev is one of the pioneers of the technology in Central Asia hailed as an environmentally friendly alternative to water-intensive concrete.
In a workshop in his home region of Batken, rice dust was billowing into the air from the husks, the rough outer shell of rice which is normally thrown away or burned.
Workers with protective masks over their faces were compressing the bricks before rushing to dry them, and helping clients load the finished blocks onto trucks.
They are “made of 60 percent rice husks. The rest is clay, cement and a chemical-free glue,” Taabaldyev told AFP.
When dry, they are as strong as cement thanks to silica naturally present inside the husks.
“This idea came to me as a child, while doing carpentry with my father,” said Taabaldyev.
The 27-year-old has already built “300 houses” in five years — first with sawdust, then with rice.
When he started, there was little robust research into the technology.
That is starting to change.
Several initial studies from various countries have highlighted the potential economic and environmental benefits of using rice blocks in construction.
Crucially, they require less cement, which is responsible for approximately eight percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to 2023 figures from the World Economic Forum.
In her village in a mountainous and arid region, Ykhval Boriyeva has also opted for rice blocks, praising their insulating qualities.
Her house remains “warm in winter and cool in spring” thanks to its low thermal conductivity.
“We save on coal. The walls retain heat and coolness well,” she said.
The material is also well within reach, with the Batken region producing a third of Kyrgyzstan’s rice crop.
“Rice waste is thrown into the fields, slowly burns, harms the environment, and is not used as fertilizer. So we decided to recycle it,” Taabaldyev said.
The problem of dealing with rice waste is even more acute in large rice producers like India.
There “31.4 million tons of rice husks fill landfills and cause environmental problems,” according to a study late last year published by Springer Nature.
“Farmers are happy for us to remove rice waste because its accumulation creates a fire risk” in barns if ventilation is poor, said Taabaldyev.
But as for the fire hazard to buildings made of rice, a regional official from Kyrgyzstan’s emergency situations ministry said there was “no particular danger.”
Farmer Abdimamat Saparov is another who has welcomed Taabaldyev’s innovative approach, pointing at the mounds of rice waste.
“After harvesting and drying the rice, about 40 percent of waste remains, which we have no way of processing,” said Saparov.
Such abundance makes the blocks cheaper than ordinary building bricks — another crucial factor in southern Kyrgyzstan, where the average monthly salary is around $230.
Cement is more expensive in Kyrgyzstan than anywhere else in Central Asia and the government is mulling adding it to a list of socially sensitive products, alongside bread and oil, that would allow it to dampen surging prices.
Having proved the concept in the mountainous region, Taabaldyev dreams of industrialising production, expanding internationally and eyeing up even more potential materials.
“I want to go to Kazakhstan to make bricks from crushed reed and straw,” he said.
Turkiye’s youngest oil wrestlers keeping a 14th-century tradition alive
- The sport, which is on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, sees wrestlers cover themselves in olive oil and try to press their opponent’s back to the ground to win the bout
EDIRNE, Turkiye: On a grass field slick with olive oil and steeped in tradition, hundreds of boys as young as 11 joined the ranks of Turkiye’s most time-honored sporting event: the annual Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Championship.
Held every summer in the northwestern city of Edirne, the event is said to date back to the 14th century as a way of keeping the Ottoman Empire’s fighting men fit and ready for battle.
The sport, which is on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, sees wrestlers cover themselves in olive oil and try to press their opponent’s back to the ground to win the bout.
Alongside the men contesting, youngsters also don the iconic “kispet” leather trousers to embark on a slippery test of strength, skill and stamina under the scorching sun.
The boys are ranked in divisions based on age, height and build, with the youngest generally placed in the “minik,” or tiny, category. Under strict safety regulations, their matches are shorter and closely supervised.
Most young wrestlers train year-round at local clubs, often in towns where oil wrestling is passed down through generations.
While the youngest competitors aren’t wrestling for titles like “baspehlivan,” the grand champion of the men’s matches, their participation is no less significant as it is key to the continuity of a sport that holds deep cultural importance across Turkiye.
This year’s contest – the 664th in its history – saw 36-year-old Orhan Okulu win his third men’s title.
“My goal was the golden belt in Kirkpinar and thanks to my God, I succeeded,” Okulu said of the coveted prize.
Pakistan confiscates 18 lions kept as pets in crackdown after attack
- The lion, which was kept without a license in a house in Lahore, was confiscated and sent to a local safari park
- Keeping exotic animals as pets has been fueled by social media, with owners often showing off their animals online as status symbols
LAHORE: Eighteen lions kept illegally as pets have been confiscated in Pakistan’s Punjab region, authorities said on Monday as they launched a crackdown after one escaped from a house and attacked a woman and two children.
The woman suffered scratches and bruises, and the two children, aged five and seven, were hospitalized after the attack last week but their injuries were not life-threatening, provincial wildlife officials said.
The lion, which was kept without a license in a house in Lahore, was confiscated and sent to a local safari park, said Mubeen Elahi, director general of the provincial Wildlife and Parks Department. The owner was later arrested, police said.
Keeping exotic animals as pets has been fueled by social media, with owners often showing off their animals online as status symbols.
“According to the new regulations for keeping big cats, no individual is allowed to keep a lion without a license, without adhering to the required cage size, and without following other standard operating procedures,” Elahi said.
The punishment is up to seven years in jail.
As well as confiscating the 18 animals, the department raided 38 lion and tiger breeding farms and arrested eight people for violating the rules, he said, adding that all farms will be inspected by the end of this week.
There are 584 lions and tigers in homes and breeding farms in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, he said.
“I know plenty of people who keep big cats as pets,” said Qaim Ali, 30, who himself had a lion but sold it after it attacked his nephew.
“Most of them are not interested in breeding but keep them as a symbol of power and influence in society.”
