Newspapers and TV stations hailed France's World Cup victory on Monday, while clean-up crews worked against the clock to tidy up after a crazy night's partying in Paris ahead of a victory parade down the Champs Elysees.

"Our Day of Glory Is Here" declared Le Figaro, referencing a rousing line from the Marseillaise anthem.

"History Made" announced sports daily L'Equipe, while business journal Les Echos went for the more straightforward "Champions of the World". Photos of superstars Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann and Paul Pogba, as well as shots of the team holding aloft and kissing the trophy, dominated coverage.

The victory has created a sense of national unity, with commentators playing up the fact the squad, the second-youngest in the competition, includes many with central and north African heritage, even if all but two were born in France.

When the country won its first World Cup in 1998, when Zinedine Zidane was its talisman and playmaker, the team was referred to as "Black-Blanc-Beur" (Black-White-Arab), a positive reference to its diverse ethnic make-up.

Gallery: France fans celebrate

But some were keen to push that phrase to one side, seeing in it a sense of separateness, even if it was meant positively.

"We're not in 1998," said Mounir Mahjoubi, the secretary of state for digital affairs, whose parents emigrated from Morocco.

"We're not still celebrating 'Black-Blanc-Beur', we're celebrating brotherhood," he said of the current team.

Videos shot by the players in the frenetic changing room after the win showed them singing, dancing and raising a toast together, while teaching President Emmanuel Macron, who could barely contain his excitement, how to do a "dab".

METRO STATIONS

For Macron, who became president last year at the age of 39, taking his political movement to victory against the odds, the football team's success is likely to have positive repercussions after a slump in the polls.

The Paris metro system got into the celebratory mood, announcing the names of a number of stations were being briefly changed to honour the players and coach, Didier Deschamps.

So Notre-Dame des Champs station was relabelled "Notre Didier Deschamps", and Victor Hugo was switched to "Victor Hugo Lloris" after the captain and goalkeeper.

The 2 km Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe and the vast Place de la Concorde turned into a heaving sea of people on Sunday night, waving red, white and blue flags, setting off firecrackers and blowing horns until early morning.

On Monday, the after-effects were still visible. A number of smashed windows, an overturned car and graffiti scrawled here and there, including the phrase "Liberte, Egalite, Mbappe", a reference to the national motto "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite".

On Twitter, Brazil legend Pele paid tribute to the exploits of Mbappe, France's standout, 19-year-old superstar, saying that if the teenager kept equalling his goal-scoring records, Pele might have to strap his boots back on.

Mbappe replied to the tweet in English saying "The king will always remain the king", quickly gaining 15,000 retweets.

The team is scheduled to arrive back in France at 1400 GMT, with crowds set to gather at Charles de Gaulle airport to receive them. A parade down the Champs Elysees is scheduled for 1530 GMT, and there will be a formal victory reception with Macron at the Elysee Palace at 1630 GMT.

And it's not just in Paris that the nation has been taken over with football fever. From Nice and Marseille in the south to Lille in the north, Nantes in the west and scores of towns and cities in between, TV stations were full of images of red, white and blue clad fans singing in streets and squares.

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic has won many admirers for own performance at the World Cup final in Moscow, where she stood in driving rain at the closing ceremony, smiled and hugged every player from both teams.

Croatia lost to France 4-2 in a thrilling final on Sunday.

Grabar Kitarovic, clad in a red-and white Croatia soccer shirt, stood on the podium with Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron when the medals were given to the players.

While Putin was handed an umbrella, she stood soaked but smiling in the heavy rain, clearly delighted by Croatia's brave showing. Aides eventually found her an umbrella.

"Best scene at the World Cup. Pouring Rain, no umbrella and Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic hugs every single player from Croatia and France, even if Croatia has just lost. That's pure emotional and so warmly. No politics, only sport! Congrats to both teams!," a comment on social media said.

Another one pointed out her graceful demeanour despite Croatia losing the final.

"A heart broken Croatia President looks graceful in defeat hugging every player!," it said.

"She made the fans more emotional," another comment added.

Grabar Kitarovic displayed great passion throughout the tournament, following the team in all the games after the group stage but missing the semi-final against England due to the NATO summit in Brussels.

"The Croatian president is coming out of this as the winner. Football shirt, rain, crying, hair ruined, doesn’t give a damn," was another one among many comments.

Some also saw a display of a great sporting spirit as she hugged players from both teams: "Loved your gesture and sporting spirit during World Cup final game. You are the true epitome of sportsman spirit. Way to Go!"

Later on Monday, the Croatian capital Zagreb will stage a welcome celebration for the soccer team, which achieved the greatest success in the history of Croatian football, surpassing their performance 20 years ago when Croatia won the third place at the World Cup in France.

Japan's incoming prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, will fill key party posts on Monday followed by a new Cabinet on Tuesday as he tries to unite a party split by one of its closest ever leadership races ahead of a likely snap general election.

That poll, which will decide which party controls parliament's powerful lower house, will come on Oct 27, Kyodo reported.

Among Ishiba's key picks so far are two rival candidates in the leadership race, Katsunobu Kato as finance minister and Yoshimasa Hayashi to stay on as chief cabinet secretary, a pivotal post that includes the role of top government spokesman, a source familiar with the appointments earlier told Reuters.

Japanese shares fell more than 4% on Monday as the yen strengthened in reaction to the leadership victory by Ishiba, who is seen as a monetary policy hawk.

A close Ishiba ally, Takeshi Iwaya, a former defence chief, will take over as foreign minister, while Gen Nakatani will return to the defence ministry, a position he held in 2016, the source, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media said, confirming earlier media reports. Yoji Muto, a former junior minister, will take charge at the economy, trade and industry ministry, a separate source said.

Absent, however, from picks so far reported in local media is Sanae Takaichi, the hardline conservative he beat by 215 votes to 194 on Friday in the closest leadership election in almost seven decades.

Takaichi's exclusion could make it difficult for Ishiba to manage a fractious ruling group roiled by scandals that have sapped its public support.

Media reports that Takaichi has declined a post "could point to a weakness in Ishiba's support base, which could cause him problems going forward," said Hiroshi Shiratori, a political science professor at Hosei University in Tokyo.

In a televised interview on Sunday, Ishiba did not discuss his cabinet appointments, but suggested he may call a general election in October. A poll must be held within the next 13 months.

Another rival, Shinjiro Koizumi, who has called for a snap election, will be his election campaign chief, according to a local media report. Former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who backed Koizumi, will be his party vice president, the sources said.

FIFA named a Senegalese UN diplomat as its first ever female secretary general on Friday, a historic move announced at a congress that sought to relegate world football's corruption crisis to the past.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino made the surprise announcement in Mexico City that he had chosen 54-year-old Fatma Samoura, an outsider unknown to the football world, to be his deputy at the male-dominated organization.

"The congress of today demonstrates without any shadow of a doubt that FIFA is back on track," said Infantino, who was elected in February after his predecessor Sepp Blatter was brought down by the scandal.

"I can officially inform you here that the crisis is over and we are all looking forward to a great future," he said after vowing that FIFA would be "reborn".

Samoura, who has worked on humanitarian crises with the United Nations for 21 years, is currently based in Nigeria for the UN Development Program.

"We have to be serious when we say we embrace diversity and we believe in gender equality," Infantino said, describing Samoura as the "most competent" person for the job, with experience in managing big organizations.

"She will bring a fresh wind to FIFA, somebody from outside, not somebody from inside, not somebody from the past but somebody new."

Samoura will take her post by mid-June after undergoing an eligibility check administered by an independent review committee.

"Today is a wonderful day for me, and I am honored to take on the role of FIFA's secretary general," Samoura, who has also worked at the World Food Program, said in a statement.

"I also look forward to bringing my experience in governance and compliance to bear on the important reform work that is already underway at FIFA."

The former secretary general, Jerome Valcke of France, was sacked in January and banned from football for 12 years over misconduct in television deals and World Cup ticket sales -- one of the many scandals that hit FIFA.

Germany's Markus Kattner had been serving as interim secretary general since then.

Infantino: 'Bullet-proof' Cup selection

Infantino also welcomed the appointment of Canadian soccer federation chief Victor Montagliani as the new president of the North and Central American and Caribbean football confederation (CONCACAF), whose previous three leaders left office under the cloud of corruption allegations.

FIFA officials meeting in the Mexican capital formally implemented governance reforms that were adopted at an extraordinary congress in February.

The measures include term limits, transparency in salaries, reinforcing integrity checks of council members, and renaming the disgraced executive committee as the council and pruning its powers.

The congress also approved a 2015-2018 budget that increases development aid to each football association from $400,000 (354,000 euros) to $1.25 million per year.

FIFA, meanwhile, resumed this week the process to select the host of the 2026 World Cup, which had been frozen since last year over claims of misdeeds in awarding the tournaments to Russia for 2018 and Qatar for 2022.

"After all the issues, or criticisms, or whatever, which happened around the last World Cup bidding process, it is absolutely crucial for FIFA's credibility that we have a bullet-poof bidding process in place for 2026," Infantino said.

He noted that human rights requirements will be examined during the process for the first time and that bidders that fail technical requirements will be excluded.

But the scandals keep haunting world football.

On Monday, Infantino's former boss, Michel Platini, said he will step down as head of European football body UEFA after failing to overturn his ban from all football-related activity over allegations that he received a dubious two million Swiss franc ($2 million, 1.8 million euros) payment from FIFA.

New members

In other decisions, the congress reinstated Indonesia in international competitions but maintained the suspensions of Kuwait and Benin over government interference in the sport.

FIFA also admitted Gibraltar and the former Serbian province of Kosovo, taking the world body to 211 members and entitling them to participate in 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

Serbia vowed to legally challenge the inclusion of Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008, a decade after a bloody conflict.

FIFA's executive originally rejected Gibraltar's bid, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ordered that the congress take a vote on the British territory, which is also claimed by Spain.

France have shut out all the euphoria back home over their run to the World Cup final in order to play a perfect match against Croatia on Sunday, France captain Hugo Lloris said.

The goalkeeper said the team were not being swept up by the wave of celebrations back home and were keeping their focus firmly on their shot of earning a second World Cup title after 1998 when they take on the Croatians in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.

"To be honest we are in our little bubble and we don't know what is happening in France," Lloris told reporters on Saturday.

"We are far from thinking that we have reached our goal. We will face a high-quality opponent and they deserve as much credit as we do.

"They have displayed their physical and mental strengths and tomorrow we will need a great French team to win."

France have never needed to go beyond 90 minutes in their run to the final after beating Argentina in the round of 16, Uruguay in the last eight and Belgium in the semi-finals.

But Croatia had to battle from a goal down in all three of their knockout matches to beat Denmark, Russia and England.

They played extra time in all of them and needed penalties against the Danes and hosts Russia.

"Croatia have shown their mental strength which is quite incredible. They have managed to qualify after extra time three times in a row. There is something special in this team," Lloris warned.

"They also have an incredible collective strength. We have a lot of respect for them. We need to perform at a high level and deliver a perfect match to win," said the keeper.

France are in their third World Cup final after winning in 1998 and losing to Italy in 2006. They also reached the Euro final on home soil two years ago only to lose to Portugal.

Lloris said that defeat was not on their minds any longer, with many current players not part of the 2016 team.

"I think that our team is quite calm. I do not really know if we realise how far we have come but it is better that way," Lloris said. "We have this inner strength from the beginning of the tournament with which we can overcome any challenge."

"Tomorrow will be the most important match of our career. It will be a special match because it is a World Cup final and we have to stay in our bubble to focus on the ultimate goal."