France set for heroes' welcome after thrilling World Cup win

The World Cup-winning French team were travelling home today for a victory parade on the Champs Elysees following their triumph in Moscow that sparked wild celebrations nationwide.

France overcame a determined Croatia team to win 4-2 in Sunday's final, 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 celebrated into the night, honking car horns and flying the tricolour flag while the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe were lit up in the national colours of blue, white and red.

The Champs Elysees, the gathering point for all national celebrations, was being cleaned up after Sunday night's mass party and will be used for a parade by the team on an electric open-top bus on Monday from around 1500 GMT.

Many commentators focused on the outpouring of patriotism and sense of national unity created by the multiracial French team, many of whose stars including Mbappe and Paul Pogba hail from deprived and often overlooked areas 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".

"Endless happiness," trumpeted the headline in France's L'Equipe sports newspaper, while the Journal du Dimanche weekly rushed out a special edition in Paris hailing a team which has ascended "To the Stars".

- 'Champions of the world' -
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"To be champions of the world as professional footballers, there is nothing better."
- 'Extraordinary soccer' -
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