Hoping to celebrate what would have been the nation's second World Cup title, France instead had to console its team for finishing second best.

There was scattered violence in Paris after France's penalty-kicks loss to Italy in the World Cup final at Berlin on Sunday night, About 100,000 people converged on the Champs-Elysees after France the match, according to police. After midnight, the crowd started dispersing, and a few groups of youths tossed bottles at riot police.

"They did something extraordinary that made all France vibrate," French President Jacques Chirac said on TF-1 television from Berlin. "I will not console them but simply admire them and esteem them."

Police braced for unrest, and some clashes were reported at a stadium in southern Paris, Stade Charlety, which broadcast the match on a huge screen. A dozen people were treated for concussions sustained in celebrations in Paris, according to police.

"I'm extremely proud of this team because it made kids who had torn apart their national identity cards (during last year's riots) come together and sing the Marseillaise on the Champs-Elysees," said Samir El Hammami, a 26-year-old engineer of Tunisian descent. "This team is the real France."

Crowds gathered in cities across France to watch the match on television. Fans lit fireworks in Lyon in brief after-parties, then trickled home. In Marseille police made several arrests.

Earlier in the day, fans chanted the refrain of a pop jingle in outdoor markets and on subway trains: "Zidane il va marquer!" -- "Zidane, he'll score a goal!"

Zinedine Zidane did, converting a penalty kick in the seventh minute. But then he exited was ejected in the 110th minute after he launched his head into the chest of Italy's Marco Materazzi.

In the mountains of eastern Algeria, near the farming hamlet of Aguemoune where Zidane's family came from, Fares Tadgenang choked back tears after watching the match in a rural bar plastered with posters of Zidane playing for various teams.

"Zidane is in my heart until the end," he said, speaking with difficulty. "His memory remains."

The team returns to France on Monday and was scheduled to go directly to a lunch at the presidential Elysee palace with Chirac.

Associated Press Writers Aidan Lewis in Aguemoune, Algeria, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report,