Paris (AFP)

Three matches and three corrections in the quarter, half and final: the French foilers had the perfect day Thursday in Düsseldorf (Germany), to win the European title, a perfect continental crown in the race for the Olympic qualification.

Erwann Le Pechoux, Enzo Lefort (individual bronze on Monday) and Julien Mertine brought a nice birthday present to Maxime Pauty: a first major title in the big league, the day of his 26 years!

"In our discipline foil, I rarely saw a team win a competition without taking more than thirty touches" at each meeting, said AFP Maxime Pauty. "We were really strong today, we made a big performance."

After a first round win 45-29 against the Netherlands, they left Great Britain with 25 hits in quarterfinals, Russia at 29 in half and Germany at 26 in the final, reaching on their side every time the 45.

"This morning, we saw our table and we knew that we only had big games and we said it was going to be a tough day," said Pauty.

The semifinal against Russia was a revenge on the humiliation suffered last year (45-12), already in the semifinals of the continental competition against the Russian Olympic champions, and that had hurt the morale of the team of very long months.

"For all of us, it was perhaps the worst humiliation in the French team, it took a long time to recover, almost all the season, and at the end of the season we ended up fighting them off, and we knew that we could beat them, "explains the Parisian.

"It's a real pleasure because I did not digest Europe last year," said national coach Emeric Clos.

- "That a first step"

Fourth stream in May in St. Petersburg for the first qualifying event for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, French florists are now on track to see Japan next summer.

"This is only a first step, the Worlds will be important," said Emeric Clos, adding that the European title will however improve their world ranking, which serves as a base for the tables at the World Championships.

"That they savor, I'm happy for them, because they'll be able to celebrate, it's good to take, and then we'll go back to work next week to continue working," breathed Clos.

A few minutes before the finalists' final, the French sabreuses went to snatch the bronze medal against Italy (45-42).

World champions and world No.1, the sabers Cécilia Berder, Charlotte Lembach, Manon Brunet and Caroline Queroli were aiming for another metal in Düsseldorf.

"The third place is not quite the number of points we would have liked (in the perspective of Olympic qualification), but we end up on a nice match with a lot of suspense," said the coach national Jean-Philippe Daurelle.

The semifinal against Hungary left some regrets since the Blue led 35-29 to two relays of the end, before collapsing and losing 45-40.

"We took a wave, we did not know how to react and not able to contain it", regrets Daurelle, however satisfied with the podium.

With the results of Thursday, the tricolor balance rises to seven medals (two gold, two silver and three bronze), already higher than the vintage 2018 (six medals, two of each metal).

? 2019 AFP