It's a small lounge reduced to the essentials, entirely dedicated to television evenings, especially when the program entices you with football at dinner time. Facing the tired sofa, in this low-cost apartment in the Cité rose, in Canteleu (Seine-Maritime), stands the cubic post from the 1980s, with manual control buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Here, no coffee table: nothing should disturb the field of vision or distract the attention of Séverine and her father, Patrick, when they have their eyes riveted on the football. Especially since, stretched like crossbows, one and the other belch with each action, hopping on the mat and darting the index finger towards the players.
An eruption that does not fail to make Line jump, the mother, indifferent to the stakes of the matches, insensitive to the bronca generated by the goals. She prefers to flee and take refuge in her room, even in the kitchen, where the meal has just ended in a rush. “You tire me with your football! she plague. They just have to take a balloon each instead of all chasing the same one, so we'll be fine! "
At the start of summer 1998, when France organized its first World Cup, this scene was part of the daily life of the Leblonds who, every evening, thus dispel the tension, stress and fatigue of their hard days at work. . Patrick is a railway worker, Line, a worker, and Séverine, their only child, a trainee nurse. She is 20 years old, a boyfriend met in first class and a “life-size” poster of Jean-Pierre Papin pinned to the wall of her bedroom, next to Robert Doisneau's famous “Kiss from the town hall”.
JPP, as she called it then, no longer plays for the French team. But in the pantheon of idols, the first star always has a special place. Séverine was 12 years old when she saw the Olympique de Marseille striker rain, and especially good weather, on the lawn of the Vélodrome. It was the first time that his father had taken him to the stands and that day he liked everything. "The songs, the crowd, the atmosphere, the stadium, the mistral ..." she lists, as if she were sniffing her little Proust madeleine.
Tomboy and daddy's girl
Back from vacation, the spirited teenager collects Panini albums and has fun feeling leather on the vacant lots of Canteleu, between the bars of buildings in his neighborhood, classified as a sensitive urban area in 1996. Tomboy and girl to dad, she elbows to find a place next to the guys. Women's teams do not yet exist.
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His father, who dreamed of having a son, told himself that damn it could not lie. After all, the city's stadium is named after one of their ancestors, Albert Dupré, who was club president for many years. And Patrick himself has evolved there for nearly fifty years… At the mention of his lineage, Séverine bursts out laughing. “Here, I played football so much that, now, I have big calves and I am really in trouble to find boots in my size! »Laughs the one who learned geography by trying to locate the big European teams.
Her humor already hit the mark at the time, and she was not afraid to display her originality: her voluminous hair reached her ears - which earned her the nickname of Mafalda, like the impertinent comic book heroine. -, and she wears a sweater with the effigy of Marsupilami and yellow Dr. Martens, "to remind the tail of the Marsupilami", she specifies. Carefully preserved in a corner of his house, in Pissy-Pôville, in the heart of a suburban housing estate in the north-western suburbs of Rouen, they have joined the vestiges of his youth: soft toys, a Nirvana T-shirt or even the jersey of the victory of the Blues in 1998.
Because that summer, that of its 20 years, coincides with the unexpected coronation of the France team, on which sports commentators have fired red balls before the start of the competition. Regular reader of L'Equipe, Séverine is imbued with criticisms concerning the choices of the coach, Aimé Jacquet. It does not bet a kopeck on the victory of its players. “Zidane, before he scored in the final, didn't seem exceptional to me,” she recalls. I was still only interested in OM. However, only Laurent Blanc and Christophe Dugarry are extracted from the ranks of Marseille.
"I did not miss a single match"
But, sharing her evenings sometimes with dad, sometimes with Eric, her boyfriend who will become her husband, she gets caught up in the game. So much so that on June 28, the day of sales, she makes a return trip to Paris to rob Galeries Lafayette - “It was our ritual, with Eric. We didn't have a bank card, we only took cash, we had lunch at the McDo on the 4th floor and we came home loaded like mules "- and manages to get back home before the kickoff from France - Paraguay, in the round of 16, at 4.30 p.m.
"I have not missed a single match," said Séverine, scrolling through the images that have marked the history of French football. Laurent Blanc's kiss on Fabien Barthez's bald head, before each meeting? " So cute! “The golden goal of the same Laurent Blanc, who takes the risk of leaving his defense zone to go up in attack, deceive the Paraguayan goalkeeper José Luis Chilavert and qualify the Blues, in extra time? “Giant! The slip of Lilian Thuram who finds himself kneeling in the center of the field, index finger on his lips, incredulous after having scored the first two goals of his career for the France team in the semi-final against Croatia? " Unbelievable! "
On July 8, 1998, the country shifts in hope and joy. From the Champs-Elysées, to Paris, to the Gros-Horloge district, to Rouen, from the Normandy countryside to the sensitive towns of Canteleu, the party spills over into the streets, echoing everywhere with the same intensity, the same spontaneity. The walls of the Leblond HLM apartment, on the 1st floor, let in bursts of voices, horns and the noises of banging glasses.
Séverine sleeps little, and badly. Waking up at 5 am to go to work at the Rouen University Hospital is a little more painful every day than the day before, especially since the hospital is the only place where football has not yet burst into existence. In the nurses' rest room, no one talks about what is going on outside. You have to concentrate on the essentials: monitoring the condition of patients, providing them with the necessary care, distributing medicines with meals.
"I have seen extremely difficult things"
And if, in the large bed "for two" that she has just obtained from her parents, Séverine still squeezes one of the soft toys offered by Eric in the evening, it is because she needs to dry her tears. The carelessness of his high school years, although not so distant, gave way to the harshness of the professional world.
She discovers "the big disease", the one that damages, tortures and sometimes kills. “I was not ready. I saw extremely difficult things and I had no one to talk to about them. There is no benevolence in the hospital environment, ”she asserts. That summer, he was asked to carry out a mortuary toilet. This memory still stings his eyes.
Returning home in the evening, behind the wheel of her Peugeot 205 Junior “Ferrari red, with the seats in jeans”, allows her to reconnect with her essential: her family. With her father, she exults at the pirouettes of the players, screams louder and louder over the matches. “Football was my air bubble, my oxygen,” she admits. Until July 12, 1998, the day of a tense final against Brazil, “the country where football is king”. While waiting for the kick-off, at 9 p.m., Séverine feels feverish, nervous. Anxious. “I wanted to believe it, but I said to myself: It's not possible. The Brazilians are too big for us. "
Jaw tight and fingers clenched, she settles on the sofa, alongside her dad. The first few minutes seem like hours, but he tries to reassure her. “The Brazilians are not in the game,” he observes. And then, suddenly, in the 27th minute, it's deliverance. On a set piece, Emmanuel Petit aims for Zinedine Zidane's header at the near post and the ball ends up in the net. The first goal is French. “And there, I refuse to get carried away, remembers Séverine. I wonder if the Blues can go the distance, the tension rises a notch. "
Less than a quarter of an hour later, Zidane doubles the bet. It's half time, father and daughter are encouraging each other. "It will do it," swears one. "Yeah, given the level of play of the Brazilians, it will do it", bid the other. And it did! Final score: 3-0. The Pink City is on fire. The neighbors sing, dance, shout. Séverine stays up late, unable to unhook from these images of jubilation which pass over and over on TV. When she wakes up the next morning, she has the creased face of revelers.
This victory crushes everything, it alleviates the suffering of daily life in the hospital, gives meaning to work, self-sacrifice and determination. Summer is hot, but mild. Séverine's love for Eric is strengthened and football seals their bond, which will flourish later in the club of supporters of PSG Handball, whose couple does not miss a match today. They buy L'Equipe du 13 Juillet, sensing that the title of one - "For Eternity" - echoes their history as much as the epic of the France team.
She learns by heart the choreography of "I Will Survive", the flagship title of Gloria Gaynor which capsizes fans of the heroes of 1998, and she rushes on the first book which traces the golden adventure of Zidane. Four months later, she obtained her nursing diploma, a first step towards independence.
In February 1999, after having obtained a CDI, she moved in with Eric, who put the ring on her finger after the birth of the first of their two children, Eliott and Eva. With them, they vibrate to the rhythm of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, enthusiastic about Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé, who add a second star on the blue jersey. “We experienced it more lightly,” Séverine breathes. With the Leblond-Tesnières, football is indeed a family affair.