France's victorious World Cup players will all be awarded the Legion of Honour, the office of President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday ahead of the squad's visit to the Elysee Palace. No date has yet been set for the ceremony to hand over France's highest award for "exceptional service" to the nation, which follows the team's 4-2 win over Croatia in Sunday's final in Moscow. France are worthy winners France hit four to win World Cup It was France's second World Cup title, 20 years after the victorious team led by captain Didier Deschamps, which also earned them a Legion of Honour from then-president Jacques Chirac. Image: France captain Hugo Lloris lifts the World Cup trophy after the 4-2 defeat of Croatia As a result, Deschamps, now the France coach, will, in theory, be promoted from a Legion Knight to a higher grade such as Officer. Best World Cup XI WATCH: Pogba sings 'It's coming home!' The team returned from Moscow to Paris on Monday afternoon and paraded the trophy down the Champs Elysees avenue before meeting with Macron and his wife Brigitte at the presidential palace. Macron had already celebrated with the team on Sunday after attending the final in Moscow. Image: Kylian Mbappe was named Young Player of the 2018 World Cup in Russia Nearly 3,000 people were invited to the reception, including 1,000 youths from football clubs around the country such as Bondy, the Paris suburb where Kylian Mbappe, the 19-year-old winner of the Young Player of the tournament award, got his start.<doc-sep>France's team has been hailed for its diversity. Paris -- The French are welcoming home their soccer heroes in Paris today after becoming the 2018 World Cup champions. But what is notable about the squad isn't just the goals they managed to rack up, but the diversity the players embody. Some 15 of the 23 members of France's World Cup team are of African descent, with families hailing from places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Cameroon, Morocco, Angola, and Algeria. While 21 out of the 23 players were born in France, many come from immigrant families. Kylian Mbappe, 19, one of the star players of the World Cup, is part Cameroonian and part Algerian. One of France's biggest goal scorers, Antoine Griezmann, is of German and Portuguese descent. "We are proud to represent the diversity of France," French midfielder Blaise Matuidi said during a press conference before the World Cup final. France midfielder Paul Pogba, whose parents are from Guinea, responded to a question about the diversity of the French team last week as well. "France today is a France full of colors. There are people of many different origins, that’s what makes France so beautiful. We all feel French, we’re happy to wear this shirt," Pogba said. France's World Cup win comes a year after far-right leader Marine Le Pen reached the run-off stage in the French presidential election. Le Pen ran on an anti-immigration platform that found support in parts of French society. This diverse team's victory contrasts with the struggle France has had in welcoming immigrants in recent years. Echoing the diversity of their football teams, thousands of people from all different backgrounds headed to the famous Champs Elysees Avenue in Paris Sunday night to celebrate the victory. Waving French flags and chanting "We are the champions," supporters united in a party atmosphere throughout the night. It's the second time in history that France has won the World Cup. The first time was in 1998. The World Cup winners were set to parade down the Champs Elysees Monday in front of thousands of supporters. The French team then heads to the presidential palace to meet French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron attended the final World Cup game in Moscow and celebrated the victory with the players in the locker room. He also thanked them in a tweet. While most of the celebrations in Paris were harmonious, there were small pockets of violence and conflict, with troublemakers throwing flares at police on Champs Elysees Avenue. French police responded using tear gas and water canons to disperse violent fans. More than 290 people were taken into custody in France last night, and 45 policemen were slightly injured during the clashes, according to the French interior minister. . @equipedefrance : MERCI While most of the celebrations in Paris were harmonious, there were small pockets of violence and conflict, with troublemakers throwing flares at police on Champs Elysees Avenue. French police responded using tear gas and water canons to disperse violent fans. More than 290 people were taken into custody in France last night, and 45 policemen were slightly injured during the clashes, according to the French interior minister.<doc-sep>To the French national motto liberté, égalité, fraternité you can probably go ahead and add diversité, at least as far as its soccer team is concerned. Because at a time of rising xenophobia and an anti-immigrant backlash on both sides of the Atlantic, France has made it to Sunday’s World Cup final against Croatia with one of the most diverse and multiethnic rosters of any national team in any sport. Sixteen of the 23 players on the team come from families that recently immigrated to France from places like Zaire, Cameroon, Morocco, Angola, Congo or Algeria. Forward Antoine Griezmann, the team’s leading scorer, is half-German and half-Portuguese. Defender Samuel Umtiti, who scored the goal that sent France to the final, was born in Cameroon. Teenage prodigy Kylian Mbappe is part Cameroonian, part Algerian. Even captain Hugo Lloris, the goalkeeper, traces his recent roots to Spain. And France is going to need contributions from all of them against a Croatian team whose players, seared in a bloody civil war, have refused to lose in this World Cup, winning all three of their knockout-stage games in extra time or penalty kicks. Advertisement “Football,” Yvan Gastaut, a University of Nice historian, told the Associated Press, “allows us to put immigration on stage, a question that is agitating European countries right now. “For people who see immigration as a danger, this World Cup story won’t resolve that. But it allows us to take stock of the reality of the world, of mobility, movements, multiple identities.” The four most successful teams in this World Cup — semifinalists England, Belgium, Croatia and France — all have multinational national teams. So even though the final will match countries whose capitals are within a two-hour flight of each other, the 32-team tournament was likely the most diverse in history. And Gastaut, who has curated an exhibition on soccer and migration, believes the trend will continue to a point where diverse team rosters will be so common that it won’t matter and “we can focus on something else other than what are our origins.” That may already be happening. When France won its only World Cup in 1998, on home soil, it stood out for having a team on which 11 players were either first- or second-generation immigrants. Zinedine Zidane, although born in France, was viewed as a foreigner by much of the country because of his Algerian roots. But after the World Cup, footage of him kissing the trophy and crying while singing the French anthem transformed Zidane into both a national hero and the flag bearer of a pluralistic France. This summer, England fielded a team that included 11 players of African and Caribbean descent, a roster that coach Gareth Southgate said “represents modern England.” “Our nation has changed,” British historian David Olusoga wrote in the Guardian newspaper. Where soccer fandom was once “a rallying point for a xenophobic and sometimes racist strain of English nationalism,” that has “increasingly seemed out of step with contemporary reality.” Advertisement In fact European soccer programs, such as those in England and France, have long benefited from outreach into poor, primarily immigrant neighborhoods, providing access to coaches and facilities. And academic reports have proven the value of that approach, with the Associated Press citing a 2013 study that looked at 10 years’ worth of Europe’s Champions League matches and found that the more diverse teams outperformed less diverse ones. That was hardly news in France. “The diversity of the squad is in the image of this beautiful country that is France,” midfielder Blaise Matuidi, born in France to African parents, said at a news conference Friday. “For us, it’s superb. We are proud to represent this beautiful jersey and I think the people are also proud to have a national team like that.” And the diversity of the French soccer program doesn’t only benefit France. Since 2002, the country has produced more World Cup players than any nation on Earth. In Russia, 50 French-born players have participated, playing not only for France but for Senegal, Morocco, Portugal, Argentina and Tunisia as well. Advertisement “Obviously we are very proud about the success of our French players,” said Didier Quillot, the chief executive for Ligue 1, France’s top-tier domestic soccer league. “We do consider France the No. 1 country in the world for training. The academies, the scouting of talent and picking them up and making them great is a clear part of our DNA.” And nowadays that DNA includes strands from dozens of countries, particularly the country’s former colonies in Africa, which have enjoyed close soccer ties with France for more than eight decades. Raoul Diagne, born in French Guiana and of Senegalese descent, was the first black to play for Les Bleus in 1931 and seven years later played in the World Cup alongside two players from North Africa. He later became first coach of an independent Senegal team. Umtiti and reserve goalkeeper Steve Mandanda are the only African-born players on this year’s team, although there are French-born players whose parents come from Algeria, Angola, Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. Advertisement “The French team is and has long been a remarkably diverse group,” Laurent Dubois, a professor of French history at Duke University, wrote in “Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France,” which focuses on the connection between empire and sport. “It is a global team, a kind of transcultural republic.” On Sunday it could become a World Cup champion team as well. kevin.baxter@latimes.com | Twitter: @kbaxter11<doc-sep>But just as with those who fell head over heels for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s occupation of the Louvre, the celebrations of the team risk missing an important point — that the fortunes of France and black Africa have been intertwined since the days of “Francafrique.” “France has been black for centuries,” Gregory Pierrot writes poignantly for Africa Is a Country. “If a point must be made by way of this team, maybe it is that France should not be allowed to claim distinction and separation from Africa so casually, because France owes Africa everything. Not just the resources it continues to pillage, not just the labor force it shamelessly taps into, not just the art it appropriates as it has for centuries: France owes Africa its very soul.”<doc-sep>
Africa’s direct interest in the World Cup ended disappointingly early in the first round in Russia but with France having 14 players with roots on the continent there is little doubt which side Africans will be backing in Sunday’s World Cup final. France’s progress to the deciding game in Moscow against Croatia has kept alive interest for Africa with the diverse and multi-cultured French squad not only representing the heterogeneity of the country but also an African diaspora that is a hotbed of footballing talent. “The diversity of the squad is in the image of this beautiful country that is France,” midfielder Blaise Matuidi, born in Toulouse to an Angolan father and a Congolese mother, said on Friday. “For us, it’s superb. We are proud to represent this beautiful jersey and I think the people are also proud to have a national team like that.” Not only do emigrant communities supply a significant number of players to national teams across Europe but African nations also benefit, having been able to boost their talent pools by assiduously courting players from the diaspora. Often there is a battle of the heartstrings as African football authorities go head to head with European federations for the loyalty of a player born in Europe but with African roots, and they will regard many of those playing in Sunday’s final as talent that has slipped through their hands. Paul Pogba’s elder twin brothers play for Guinea but their younger sibling, born in the suburbs of Paris, was just 20 when France handed him a first cap, thereby tying him to their cause. FIFA permits player to switch international allegiance only before they have played a competitive senior international. Cameroon sent famed striker Roger Milla to try to persuade Samuel Umtiti to play for them. He was born in Yaounde but moved to France at an early age and came up through the French junior national teams. Back-up goalkeeper Steve Mandanda is the other African-born member of France’s squad at the World Cup and has a brother who has kept goal for the Democratic Republic of Congo. The rest of the squad with African connections are French-born to parents from Algeria, Angola, Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. Close links between French and African football go back some 80 years. Senegalese Raoul Diagne played in the 1938 World Cup and later became a deputy in the French assembly, as well as the first coach of independent Senegal. Just Fontaine, whose tally of 13 goals in the 1958 finals remains a World Cup record, came from Morocco and Zinedine Zidane, arguably the greatest French footballer, was born in Marseille to Algerian parents. He was the hero of France’s World Cup-winning team 20 years ago whose success was hailed as a powerful and inspiring rejection of racism in French society.