FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy met Thierry Henry at the Elysée Palace yesterday as recriminations over the debacle at the World Cup overshadowed protests against pension reforms and preparations for a G20 summit.
On the team’s return to Le Bourget airport in Paris amid tight security yesterday morning, Henry was collected by an official car and brought straight to the Elysée, where the president had changed his schedule for a meeting with the player. A spokesman for Mr Sarkozy declined to discuss what was a “private meeting”, while Henry used a side door at the palace to avoid the 50 journalists gathered outside.
Meanwhile, television cameramen on motorbikes had followed the car that was driving Patrick Evra back to Paris. The Manchester United player opened his window but cut questions short, saying: “Today is not the time to speak, today is the time for suffering.”
Mr Sarkozy is furious at the damage caused to France’s reputation by this week’s fiasco and has promised to take action to avoid a repeat. In one of the harshest condemnations so far, minister for health and sport Roselyne Bachelot castigated “the disaster of the national team made of immature gang leaders in command of scared kids with a coach at a loss and without any authority and a federation with its back against the wall”. She said the departure of Jean-Pierre Escalettes, president of the football federation, was now “inevitable”.