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LEGION D'HONNEUR

French World Cup champions awarded Legion d’Honneur

The players in France's football team which last year won the World Cup have been awarded the Legion of Honour in the new year's honours list.

Published: 2 January 2019 09:46 CET
French World Cup champions awarded Legion d'Honneur
French players celebrate with the trophy at the end of the Russia 2018 World Cup final football match between France and Croatia. Photo: AFP
The 23 players, including star strikers Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann, each received France's top medal for their part in beating Croatia in the World Cup final in Moscow.
   
The French team that won the 1998 World Cup also received the Legion of Honour.
   
A total of 402 people — half men, half women — were on this year's list, including French writer Michel Houellebecq, whose latest book “Sérotonin” is to be published later this month.
   
Houellebecq became a pin-up of France's far right after publishing “Submission”, with its vision of a France subject to sharia law after electing a Muslim president in 2022.
   
Others included Marin Sauvageon, a student who was badly beaten up in Lyon in November 2016 after standing up to a gang that was insulting a kissing couple.
 
READ ALSO:

Ten names that brought 'dishonour' to France's Legion of Honour

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LEGION D'HONNEUR

Macron to award London Legion d’Honneur for helping France fight Nazi Germany

France's Emmanuel Macron will head to London in June to present the city with his nation's highest accolade, the Legion d'Honneur, to cement cross-Channel ties even after Britain's exit from the EU.

Published: 1 February 2020 12:59 CET
Macron to award London Legion d'Honneur for helping France fight Nazi Germany
Photos: AFP

“Dear British friends, you are leaving the European Union but you are not leaving Europe,” the president wrote in an open letter published Saturday by The Times of London.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's dramatic June 18, 1940, appeal from London, where he had escaped with the remnants of France's army, for French citizens to resist while awaiting UK and US help in fighting Nazi Germany.

“The French know what they owe the British, who allowed our Republic to live. I am coming to London in June to award the city the Legion d'Honneur, in tribute to the immense courage of a whole country and people,” Macron wrote.

He also noted that “the UK has been a central player in the European project… a more influential player than the British have often themselves imagined.”

But Macron acknowledged that the uncertainties surrounding Brexit are far from settled, not least the fallout on trade relations.

“Ease of access to the European market will depend on the degree to which the European Union's rules are accepted, because we cannot allow any harmful competition to develop between us,” he said.

The French president was largely alone in acknowledging Britain's official departure from the EU as of midnight (2300 GMT) Friday, ending 47 years of participating in the Continent's project for an “ever-closer union among the
people's of Europe.”

In a television address Friday, he called Brexit a “historic warning sign” indicating that “we need more Europe.”

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