France's World Cup Win Is a 'National Relief' After Attacks and Racial Tension

PARIS — The bells of Notre Dame rang out, subway conductors sounded their horns across Paris and crowds packed the Champs-Élysées for the second day running Monday — an explosion of joy washing over France even greater than 20 years ago, when the country last won the men’s soccer World Cup.

But that new delirium speaks as much to France’s recent past as to the happiness of the moment. There has been an eager embrace of cross-cultural celebration since the match ended Sunday evening — a sharp contrast to the divisions of race against race, city against suburb, immigrants against natives that were exacerbated by the terrorist attacks of 2015 in Paris and 2016 in Nice.