Coach: Raymond Domenech
Tactics: Compact, organised and pacy up front.
Star Player: Thierry Henry - can create, can score and an inspiration to his team-mates.
Verdict: Have, on paper, a strong squad but too many ageing players. Were struggling in qualifying until the return of Zinedine Zidane, Claude Makelele and Lilian Thuram. Whether that trio can still cut it at the highest level remains to be seen but in Henry, France are sure to have one of the best players in the tournament. William Gallas is also key at the back.
Ten things you didn’t know about France
1. France’s motto, ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’, was not adopted until the Revolution of 1848.
2. Louis XIV (1462-1515) hated washing and only took three baths in his entire adult life. Not bathing was a sign of prestige at the time, and people covered up the stink with perfumes, oils and spices. More recently, a survey reported that the French wash less than any other Europeans.
3. Despite this, married men in France use more cosmetics than their wives.
4. For centuries, a rite of passage for French gourmets has been to eat the ortolan bird. These tiny birds are captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac, then roasted and eaten whole, bones and all, while the diner draped his or her head with a napkin to preserve the aroma, their manners, and some say, to hide from God. It is now illegal to eat ortolan in France.
5. The battle of Agincourt was fought on October 25 1415 in northern France as part of the Hundred Year’s War (1337-1453). Henry V’s English army, although outnumbered, gave the French a good kicking – 12,000-18,000 French dead or wounded to a trifling 150-250 dead English.
6. During the First World War, the punishment for homosexuality in the French army was execution.
7. Louis XIX was King of France from breakfast until teatime on 2 August 1830, at which point he abdicated.
8. French poet Gérard de Nerval used to take a lobster for a walk on the end of a length of ribbon through the Palais Royal gardens in Paris. Not surprisingly, he ended up hanging himself from a lamp-post.
9. Frenchman Michel Lotito, known as Monsieur Mangetout, specialises in eating glass and metal. His diet included supermarket trolley, TV sets, aluminium skis, bicycles, beds, plates, razor blades, a coffin, and even a Cessna 150 light aircraft.
10. In some regions of France the locals still believe that if a bachelor steps on a cat’s tail, he won’t find a wife for at least a year.
