Zinédine Zidane has wasted no time putting his stamp on the France job, and he has done it in the most theatrical way possible, quite literally. One of the traditions of the national team’s camps was the players arriving at the Clairefontaine training centre, essentially a parade that will now no longer take place. Or rather, it will change. As L’Équipe noted, in recent years the start of every France camp had become a full-blown red-carpet affair, with around twenty photographers and television crews taking up positions at the entrance to the training centre for almost an hour to capture the players arriving, while some of them showed off increasingly elaborate outfits. Those images gradually fuelled greater expectations and racked up millions of views on social media, including beyond France, while some television programmes even began debating the players’ style. The number of journalists present grew with every camp and, at the last gathering before the World Cup, a blue carpet was even added to make the Bleus’ “défilé” more spectacular.
Zidane has decided to put an end to the tradition. From the next camp onwards, journalists and photographers will no longer be allowed to watch the players arrive at Clairefontaine. The ritual itself, however, will not disappear completely. The stream of cars and internationals will continue, ensuring continued visibility for the Federation’s automotive sponsor and the brands associated with some of the players. What will change is the way those images are produced. The arrivals will be filmed exclusively by the Federation’s own photographers, camera operators and videographers, who will then make the material available to all media outlets for them to use. It is therefore very likely that images of the Bleus will continue to circulate around the world.
The main argument from the national team staff in favour of the new arrangement is that it offers a more practical and equitable system for the media. But there is also a desire within Zidane’s staff to make Clairefontaine feel even more special, as the place where the players stay during international breaks, with its outdoor spaces reserved exclusively for the players and Federation staff. The new France coach also wants the beginning of each camp to be more focused on the pitch and the game. The new system for producing images should, in turn, help take some of the theatre out of the players’ arrivals, which had gradually become a spectacle in their own right. The images of the Bleus will still circulate, but the parade that in recent years had turned Clairefontaine into something of a catwalk will be considerably less spectacular.