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Reactions
After the final, President Jacques Chirac hailed Zidane as a national hero and called him a "man of heart and conviction".Chirac later added that he found the offence to be unacceptable, but that he understood that Zidane had been provoked.President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria expressed his solidarity with Zidane in a letter of support. French newspaper Le Figaro called the headbutt "odious" and "unacceptable". The editor-in-chief of French sports daily L'Equipe compared Zidane's greatness to Muhammad Ali's, but added that Ali, Jesse Owens and Pelé had never "broken the most elementary rules of sport" as Zidane had. He questioned how Zidane could explain the offence to "millions of children around the world", but apologised the following day. Algerian newspaper L'Expression accused Italy of being "xenophobic", while a commentator for TIME magazine regarded the incident as a symbol for Europe's "grappling with multi-culturalism". Zidane's sponsors announced that they would stick with him. The incident was extensively lampooned on the internet and in popular culture.
Zinadine Zidane
After the final, President Jacques Chirac hailed Zidane as a national hero and called him a "man of heart and conviction".Chirac later added that he found the offence to be unacceptable, but that he understood that Zidane had been provoked.President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria expressed his solidarity with Zidane in a letter of support. French newspaper Le Figaro called the headbutt "odious" and "unacceptable". The editor-in-chief of French sports daily L'Equipe compared Zidane's greatness to Muhammad Ali's, but added that Ali, Jesse Owens and Pelé had never "broken the most elementary rules of sport" as Zidane had. He questioned how Zidane could explain the offence to "millions of children around the world", but apologised the following day. Algerian newspaper L'Expression accused Italy of being "xenophobic", while a commentator for TIME magazine regarded the incident as a symbol for Europe's "grappling with multi-culturalism". Zidane's sponsors announced that they would stick with him. The incident was extensively lampooned on the internet and in popular culture.
Zinadine Zidane
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