Emmanuel Macron encouraged the Blues to go “to the end” of Euro football which begins on Friday, arriving Thursday at the Clairefontaine training center (Yvelines) for lunch with the players.
"Go to the end, eh!", Launched the Head of State, greeting striker Antoine Griezmann, who replied: "we will try, we represent France".
Emmanue Macron in discussion with N'Golo Kanté POOL / REUTERS
On his arrival at Clairefontaine, Emmanuel Macron greeted, by slapping them in the fist, all the players, asking them “then, in shape?”, “Morale is good?”.
“It's nice!” He told Karim Benzema, back in the France team after five years.
"Thank you for the vaccine, it was great," he then told Kylian Mbappé, who had posted a photo of his vaccination on social networks.
He congratulated the tireless N'Golo Kanté for his “good season” and his victory in the Champions League with Chelsea, asking him if he “still had three lungs?”.
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The head of state, accompanied by his wife Brigitte and the presidents of Fifa Gianni Infantini and of the FFF Noël Le Graet, was then to share the lunch of the Blues, who will start the competition with a top match against Germany on June 15.
Located in the middle of the woods of Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines, the “house of the Blues” is placed under a health “bubble”, with the respect of a strict protocol because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron against the Blues POOL / REUTERS
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By going there, Emmanuel Macron is continuing a tradition launched by Jacques Chirac in 1998 and which he has respected since the start of the five-year term by having supported the French men's and women's teams before the 2018 World Cups in Russia and 2019 in France.
"These competitions, we win them first when we are not afraid," he told the players.
A year earlier, he had ordered the Blues to win "the second star", that is to say a second world championship title after that of 1998. He then went to Moscow for the final won by France vs Croatia 4-2.