French to name new squad

Philippe Christanval was surprise initial selection

French manager Roger Lemerre will announce a new Euro 2000 squad at the weekend.

Lemerre called 12 players to a training camp in the Alpine resort of Tignes this week but did not say whether they would all be in his list of 22 for next month's finals.

Team spokesman Philippe Tournon declined to say whether the list would be definitive or whether it would contain additional names.

AS Monaco's French Under-21 defender Philippe Christanval was among those named in the initial list of a dozen players.

Only three non-French based players made the initial list: Zinedine Zidane of Juventus, Lilian Thuram of Parma and Vincent Candela of AS Roma.

Lemerre was hoping that players from Arsenal and Chelsea will be injury free following the Uefa Cup and FA Cup finals respectively.

Thierry Henry, Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira all represented Arsenal in the Uefa Cup final and came through unscathed.

Chelsea's Didier Deschamps, Marcel Desailly and Frank Leboeuf were due to be involved in the English FA Cup final against Aston Villa at Wembley.

The deadline for squad announcements is May 31.