.New Manchester City recruit Patrick Vieira says he has a “100 per cent chance” of playing for France at next summer’s World Cup finals, despite having not represented his country since June 2009.
“As I’m an optimist, I’m going to say 100 per cent,” he said in response to a question about his chances of playing in South Africa on the Canal Football Club television show overnight.
“The desire is there, it’s my goal.”
Vieira, who has yet to play for his new club, admitted that he had received “no guarantees” from France coach Raymond Domenech, who he met shortly before Christmas, and conceded that the situation “is not as simple as that”. In my head, I don’t see myself missing the World Cup.
“You have to play, which is the important thing for me.
“But he said that as soon as I’m playing, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be selected,” said Vieira, whose last France appearance saw him captain Les Bleus to a 1-0 defeat against Nigeria in Saint-Etienne last June. I have five months.
He joined City from reigning Italian champion Inter Milan on January 8.”
Vieira, 33, was a member of the France team that won the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship and has 107 caps.
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.Filmmaker Roman Polanski won more damages on Tuesday (local time) from French publications that printed photographs of him at his Swiss home where he is confined pending extradition proceedings in a child sex case.
A Paris court convicted the magazines VSD and Voici and the weekly newspaper Journal de Dimanche of breaching Polanski’s privacy by publishing zoom-lens pictures of him and his children without permission.
Polanski is under house arrest while Swiss authorities consider a demand by the United States to deport him to face charges of having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in California in 1977.
It ordered them to pay a total of 16,000 euros ($24,700) in fines, costs and compensation to him and his wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner.
.France has deported to Egypt a radical imam who for months had been inciting followers in Paris area mosques to rise up against the West, the government said.
Described as dangerous, Ali Ibrahim Al-Sudani was detained and sent back to Egypt under an emergency deportation order, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said in a statement. .
The Egyptian national was the 29th imam or Islamic preacher to have been deported from France since 2001, according to the interior ministry.
Mr Sudani, aged around 27, showed “contempt for our society’s values and incited violence,” he added.
French security agencies had been tracking Sudani since 2008 and found his Jihadist teachings to be “quite hardline,” said an official close to the case.
In all, 129 Islamic radicals have been expelled from French territory, it added.
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.French world number 10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has pulled out of the season-opening ATP event in Doha starting Monday with a wrist injury, organisers said Friday.
“I am really disappointed not to be able to participate in this tournament owing to a wrist injury. . I hope to be able to play in the future (in Doha) but for now I hope the tournament goes off well - Happy New Year to everyone,” Tsonga said in a statement.
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Murray has this season switched his opening week focus to Perth, Australia, as he bids for Hopman Cup glory alongside fellow Briton Laura Robson
.Veteran French rocker Johnny Hallyday has cancelled his farewell tour in order to recover after emergency surgery in the United States.
The 160,000 fans who bought tickets for the 24 concerts across France, which had been due to start January 8, will be reimbursed.
Doctors woke him on Tuesday after several days in a drug-induced coma.
The 66-year-old was hospitalised last week in Los Angeles after complications from a back operation performed in Paris last month.
Though little known abroad, Hallyday has sold more than 100 million albums and played 45 major tours in a career that began in the 1960s.
Hallyday’s son David said at the weekend that his father’s life was “out of danger”.
.New Zealand has filed an official complaint with the International Rugby Board after prop Tony Woodcock suffered abrasions around his eyes during Saturday’s 39-12 win over France in Marseille.
All Blacks assistant coach Steve Hansen says the team had asked the citing commissioner to investigate an incident late in the match.
“We asked the citing commissioner to have a look at it and we’ll leave it in his hands.
“There’s no doubt Tony got a facial, that’s how he described it,” he said.
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The officer has 48 hours to decide whether any player has a case to answer, but Woodcock says television footage of the incident was inconclusive and is happy to let the matter rest
.Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed Hussein says she has donned a full Islamic veil to sneak out of Sudan and travel to France, two months after she was freed from jail for wearing trousers.
On a visit to Paris to promote her new book, Ms Hussein accused Khartoum of trying to block her departure and said she was determined to exercise her right to travel freely.
“They wanted to prevent me from leaving; I resorted to the niqab and managed to leave,” said Ms Hussein, who was jailed for a day in September for violating Sudan’s clothing decency laws by wearing trousers.
“I did not flee Sudan.
“I requested documents to be able to leave, to be able to travel, and this is the only means I found to be able to leave Sudan,” she said. . I am a Sudanese citizen.
Ms Hussein faced a punishment of 40 lashes when she was convicted in July for wearing her green trousers in public.
After she refused to pay the fine, Ms Hussein served a one-day jail sentence.
But a Sudanese court in September ordered her to pay a fine instead, while 10 of the 12 other women arrested with her at a Khartoum restaurant on July 3 were lashed.
The Paris welcome for Ms Hussein came as France was debating measures to prohibit women from wearing the full Islamic veil, which President Nicolas Sarkozy has said is a symbol of women’s subservience.
More than 43,000 women were arrested last year in the Khartoum region by police tasked with enforcing Sudan’s laws on indecent clothing for women.
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.Former All Blacks winger Jonah Lomu returned to rugby union overnight with French semi-professional side Marseille-Vitrolles.
Once the most feared man in world rugby, the 34-year-old, who played 63 Tests for New Zealand between 1994 and 2002 before his career was cut short by kidney disease, returned in a 63-18 win over Montmelian in the equivalent of the third division.
Playing at centre, the former winger did not really shine and failed to score a try but said he was happy to have played again.
Lomu, who burst into the limelight at the 1995 World Cup, signed a two-year contract for the Marseille side earlier this year.
“I need to feel more confident and be able to communicate with my team-mates better but this was a first match and I wasn’t expecting miracles.
“I’m rather satisfied,” Lomu told reporters.”
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. I did my best
.The European Union has chosen Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy to be its first president.
The leaders of all 27 EU countries agreed to the choice at a meeting in Brussels.
The new job was made possible because of the recent ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
Speaking in French and English at a news conference after his appointment, Mr Van Rompuy cited employment and the environment as urgent concerns for Europe.
Mr van Rompuy is known as a consensus builder but has a very low profile outside Belgium.
“Every country has its own history, its own culture, its own way of doing things.
He says he is confident EU member countries will be able to work together successfully. . Without respect for our diversity, we will never build on our unity.
“Denying this would be counter-productive.”
For weeks there had been intense lobbying and speculation about who may end up representing the EU to the world. I will always bear this principle in mind.
The post of the EU’s foreign affairs chief, however, has gone to a Briton, Baroness Catherine Ashton.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair was a frontrunner for the job, but he was eliminated early in proceedings after it was clear neither the French nor German leaders would support his appointment.
Emerging from the meeting, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Baroness Ashton’s appointment proved Britain was still at the heart of the future of Europe despite Mr Blair failing to garner enough support.
Emerging from the meeting, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Baroness Ashton’s appointment proved Britain was still at the heart of the future of Europe despite Mr Blair failing to garner enough support.
.Melbourne Storm lock Dallas Johnson has accepted an offer “too good to refuse”, signing a three-year contract with Super League club Catalans Dragons.
The Storm reluctantly agreed to grant the two-time NRL premiership-winning forward an early release from his contract, which had been due to run until the end of the 2011 season.
“This was without doubt the toughest decision of my career.
“The Storm, as a club, has meant so much to me,” said Johnson, 26, who played in the last four State of Origin series for Queensland. .
“I made my debut in Storm colours, represented Queensland and Australia while playing for them, and have made some life-long friends.
“The opportunity to continue my rugby league career with the security of a long-term deal and in such a beautiful part of the world was one that I couldn’t refuse.
“But there are other areas of life I want to explore and living abroad and travelling is absolutely up there on the list.
“For a guy his size, to do what he does on the field, week after week, is simply incredible,” Bellamy said.”
Storm coach Craig Bellamy, who made his debut as coach on the same night Johnson played his first NRL game, described the hard-hitting lock as the toughest rugby league player he had seen.
“He’s a popular guy amongst the players and he will be missed by all.
“He’s the toughest player I have ever seen.”
- AAP