KEY POINTS:
Take your left hand (or right hand, if you are left-handed). Hold out your right arm straight. Now slap the palm of your left hand across your right arm, just above the elbow. As you do this, raise your right arm to the vertical.
There: you have just done a rude French gesture that pretty much sums the national mood after les Bleus stuffed it to the All Blacks once more in a World Cup.
A win that will instantly take its place in the annals of rugby-triggered ecstasy and pride as well as a belly laugh at the pundits who had predicted a New Zealand walkover and had sniggered at the dire failings of northern hemisphere rugby.
From the Belgian border to the Pyrenees and the Atlantic to the Alps, 16.6 million watched the showdown.
In Paris, streets echoed with screams as final tense minutes of the match were fought out, followed by cries of joy and "on a gagne!" (we won!) as the final whistle blew. Around sports bars, croaky-voiced fans, their voices saturated with beer and disbelief, talked about the wall of red, white and blue that faced the Haka, the second-half comeback, the heroic defence, the stalwart Chabal and le Petit Fred [Michalak] who made the match-winning try.
At rugby clubs, where players and their families gathered to watch the match, the mood defied description.
"What solidarity, what a historic moment," said Sylvain Marconnet, a Bleu who missed out on the World Cup through injury. "I feel so great that I could land the presidential Airbus upside-down on the Champs-Elysees."
"France's incredible feat," headlined the Parisien. "French flair is back," said the sports dailies l'Equipe. "Gigantic," declared Nice-Matin and Midi-Matin. "Impossible is not French," said another regional daily, la Montagne, in a poke at the All Blacks' sponsors' slogan.
Blogs among rugby fans picked over the match in fine detail, with many contributors pointing out the irony that the two northern hemisphere underdogs, England and France, had both trashed their southern-hemisphere superiors.
"All those people who predicted the northern hemisphere teams would collapse should shut their gobs," said one. "Bye bye les blacks and vive les Bleus."
The mood spiced a special evening in Paris, a once-a-year-event called la Nuit Blanche (White Night), in which museums, chateaux, cafes, clubs, restaurants and even swimming pools stay open all night and the metro system keeps running to encourage people to saunter in the city. Around one and a half million thronged the streets in the balmy summer-like temperatures.
"It's a very beautiful night for Paris," said Delanoe as the post-match celebrating unfurled. The rugby results helped make the Nuite Blanche "positive and peaceful," said the organiser of the event, Christophe Girard.
