The French national football team represents the nation of France in international football. It is fielded by the French Football Federation and competes as a member of UEFA.

France was one of the four European teams that participated at the inaugural World Cup in 1930. Except for mild success in the 1950s, the French team was a modest competitor from its beginnings until the 1970s. In the 1980s, led by midfielder and captain Michel Platini, the team reached semi-finals at both the 1982 and 1986 World Cups, and won the 1984 European Championship.France then reached an even higher status in international football by being especially successful at the end of the 1990s and in the 2000s; they won the World Cup as the host nation in 1998, and the European Football Championship two years later, as well placed second at the 2006 World Cup tournament. Midfielder Zinedine Zidane was particularly instrumental in achieving those honours.

France and Argentina are the only national teams in the world which won the four most important titles organized by FIFA: World Cup, Gold medal in football in the Olympic Games, Confederations Cup, and the Continental Cup (Copa America for Argentina, and UEFA European Football Championship for France).France is the winner of European Championship 1984 and 2000.And they have a FIFA World Cup belongs to 1998.

In the Qualification Round,France got the second place after Italy in Group B.And now they will struggle in Group C against Italy, Netherlands and Romania.First match will be 9 June 2008 at 18:00 against Romania, on Zurich - Letzigrund stadium.

France Team Squad:

Goalkeepers: Grégory Coupet, Sébastien Frey , Mickaël Landreau

Defenders: Eric Abidal, Jean-Alain Boumsong , François Clerc , Julien Escudé , Patrice Evra ,William Gallas, Gaël Givet, Philippe Mexès,Bacary Sagna ,Willy Sagnol,Sébastien Squillaci, Lilian Thuram

Midfielders: Hatem Ben Arfa, Abou Diaby, Alou Diarra ,Lassana Diarra, Claude Makelele Florent Malouda,Rio Antonio Mavuba, Samir Nasri, Franck Ribéry, Jérôme Rothen, Jérémy Toulalan ,Patrick Vieira,

Forwards: Nicolas Anelka, Karim Benzema, Djibril Cissé, Sidney Govou,Thierry Henry, Frédéric Piquionne, Louis Saha, David Trezeguet,Sylvain Wiltord

Raymond Domenech - Manager Of French National Football Team

Raymond Domenech (born 24 January 1952 in Lyon) is a former French football player and the current manager of the French national team. He is of partly Spanish-Catalan descent. His father fled Spain during the rule of Francisco Franco. He has two children, Victoire (*2004) and Merlin (*2007) with famous football-specialized sports journalist Estelle Denis.

On July 12, 2004, Domenech was a surprise choice to succeed Jacques Santini after the country’s disappointing exit from Euro 2004 by losing in the quarter-final match to the eventual tournament winners Greece. He was given the objective by the Fédération Française de Football to reach “at least” the 2006 FIFA World Cup semi-finals.Now, he will try to win the cup of Euro 2008.

**********************************************************