YOU KNOW there's a game on in Paris tomorrow night.

But only because men and women in green shirts with eircom written on the front have started to invade Paris. Walk around Paris this morning and the only sign of interest in the game, the second leg of Le Barrage, is from the visitors.

The locals have, so far, greeted the game and their team with a big shrug of indifference. The rain on the streets of the French capital this morning putting another dampener on the mood, if there was one to begin with.

Just stroll around Paris and you see what's occupying the minds of the locals. Posters for Stade Francais plugging a big game they have next month (you can also, if you're interested in the male form, buy an expensively assembled charity calendar of the Stade players in the nip, but that's for another day). More posters trying to flog tickets for the big gigs coming to town (the insufferably dull Norah Jones).

The papers have matters to deal with, issues to play out. It's obviously a slow news day in Paris when the lead story in one of the papers is a plan to have stiffer jail sentences for owners of dogs who maul and kill people.

Emotions

There isn't even the novelty of having so many Irish in town to stir the emotions -- L'Equipe this morning speculates that between 12,000 and 15,000 Ireland supporters will come to Paris for the game, a vote of confidence in Trapattoni if true given that the FAI's official ticket allocation was only 8,500.

But the Barrage Retour? It's like the love that dare not speak its name. Last week, days before the Ireland-France game in Croke Park, the marketing people were out in force in the Dublin 3 area, making sure that every pub in the immediate vicinity of Croker was decked out in all the latest promotional gear aimed at flogging beer to thirsty Irishmen and women.

And our French visitors, of course, the French players amazed to see that their travelling support in Dublin was so large (the French often have 50 or 60 punters at their away games). It's not as bad as Belgium's lack of interest in their national team, however, as evidenced by the fact that just one fan made the trip to Yerevan for a game away to Armenia a few months ago.

Maybe it will be a different scenario by 6pm tomorrow when the average Parisian finishes his day's work, switches off the business brain and turns on his love for Les Bleus, but for now, French minds are not on the World Cup.

There are attempts to stir up interest. We know that by now there are strong links between the Irish soccer team and the rugby squad. Brian O'Driscoll was on hand to hand out caps at a ceremony in the team hotel last month, the rugby squad left a 'good luck' card in the dressing room for Robbie Keane and his team-mates before the France game last Saturday, and the soccer players showed their respect by attending the rugby international against Australia on Sunday.

There's a bit of sporting ecumenism here in France, too. With little in the way of firm news coming out of either camp, and the thought that the Diarra-Andrews spat is over before it's begun -- the French media have been seeking views of other sportsmen about the game.

The main focus of L'Equipe today is interviews with stars from other codes, all backing Raymond Domenech and his team. So we have athlete Ladji Doucouré ("I'll be blowing klaxons in the streets when we win"), handball star Nikola Karabatic ("We have a great team with great players"), tennis player Guy Forget ("I'm glad I am French and not Irish").

And yet you get the feeling that France has not yet warmed up, even though by tomorrow night the Stade de France will be packed with 72,000, while back at home 62 million French people and four million Irish will follow on TV (that's if we get the TV rights sorted).

Indifference

France's indifference about the Ireland game is nothing new. It's part of the French paradox: in football they have one of the best national teams in the world, have world-famous events like the Tour de France, Roland Garros. Some of the best football players and coaches on the planet. Their sports newspaper, L'Equipe, is envied by sports fans and journalists from other nations as the only thing to read or work for.

And yet, and yet. The French treat their football team like a wife from an old, faded marriage who still has a legal hold on their affections but without any real love or warmth. Witness their travelling support in Dublin: of the 72,000 fans who will pay into the Stade de France tomorrow night (minus the Irish supporters of course) and the 62million people who live there, could they not find another 1,000 punters to at least have the moral high ground of taking up their full ticket allocation, instead of sending those tickets back to the FAI as if they'd come to Paris with a bad smell.

We were here before, in 1998. That year France hosted and won the Fifa World Cup finals. You'd hardly have known it, though, if it wasn't for all the branded posters and flags around from Coca Cola and Fuji. The French, in general, had no interest in the competition until the quarter-final stage, at which point it was clear that this brilliant side of Desailly, Blanc, Lizarazu, Thuram, Zidane and Dugarry were going to win it.

Once the French side did triumph, the nation celebrated. But it was a bit like the GPO in 1916, everyone claims to have been there at the beginning but in honesty, there was only a handful of die-hards when the fighting started.

Paris this week is a bit like that as well. They know there is some sort of game, but they also know they are going to the World Cup next summer, so maybe sometimes confidence is well placed. But as Thierry Henry says, we'll see what happens on the field.

- Aidan Fitmaurice