PARIS. Dec 31 (Reuters): The mqst memorable year in French soccer history is ending with enthusiasm for the game greater than ever — and a fine new generation of players knocking at the door of the national team.

Increased attendances, higher playing standards and the export of tne best players to Europe's top clubs underline the advances soccer has made in France.

In years gone by, France gave soccer great administrators like Jules Rimet, the founding father of the World Cup, and Henri Delauney. who helped kick the European Championship into life.

The seeds of the European Cup were also sown in France, but apart from Isolated successes like France winning the European Championship in 1984 and Olympique Marseille’s victory in the 1993 European Cup final, France had not achieved anything much of note on the field until this year.

Now their egalitarian team, which won the World Cup without a hugely dominating influence in the mould of Pele. Franz Beckenbauer or Diego Maradona, enters the new millennium as world champions — the crowning fruit of an excellent player production process from grass roots to the top.

World Cup winning coach Aime Jacquet — even more than playmaker Zinedine Zidane.

the newly crowned European player of the year, was the figurehead of France's success and deserves all credit for it.

On the field. Marcel De-sailly. Laurent Blanc. Lilian Thuram and Emmanuel Petit are as equally deserving as Zidane of the highest accolades.

Inter Milan's Youri Djorka-eff. a key player in the victorious French side recently: "France’s greatest quality is adaptability... the Germans, Italians. Dutch and English all explained our victory that way.

"We are capable of adapting to a given situation in no time, we always have two solutions to a problem," he said.

We were a chameleon team and that's where our strength lay in* relation to teams like Brazil or Holland, the other two serious pretenders to victory.

'That'S why they didn't win. their game was too rigid, stereotyped. therefore easy to predict and counter," he said.

"We, in contrast, were capable of going where we weren’t expected. For two years, in friendly matches, we were seen as very square in our play. Then suddenly, we became triangular. ■ then diamond-shaped and then again square.

"Jacquet left the door ajar. He had confidence in our analysis and let us take tactical decisions," Djorkaeff said.

Such is the current health of the French game that many of the country's best players grace

the world's best club sides and France have three teams in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals for the first time.

A minor blot on a dream landscape is RC Lens' failure to reach the last eight in the European Cup, the first time a French team has not qualified since 1992.

But Lens’ French title victory last season was the fifth year in a row in which a different team has won the league championship after Paris St Germain, Nantes, AJ Auxerre and Monaco.

This, after years of dominance by Marseille, points to a depth of quality in the French game that has flowered since the country's failure to qualify for successive World Cups in 1990 and 1994.

Lens have contributed to a year of numerous "firsts" with their first major trophy in May. The new Stade de France broke the French record for a crowd at a football match when it was virtually filled to its 80,000 capacity at its official inauguration with an international friendly against Spain in January.

Olympique Marseille broke the record for a crowd at a club match by filling their refurbished Velodrome to almost its new 60.000 capacity as attendance recordstumbled throughout the country — and continue to do so.

But coaches fear that new

European Union regulations might undermine their brilliant youth programmes.

The French federation FFF will be looking to ensure that if youngsters who cost a lot of money to raise are free to sign their first professional contracts with the highest bidder then their first club should receive a compensatory transfer fee which the Bosman ruling precludes.

FFF regulations which apply to movements between French clubs state that an apprentice must sign his first professional contract with his first club if it so wishes.

"There are countries where footballers are exempt from taxes and clubs from social benefits." said veteran coach Guy Roux, who heads arguably the country's best youth scheme at Auxerre.

"In France, where quotes and taxes are heavy, you need three times as much money as in Spain or England to keep a player."

Arsenal's Nicolas Anelka and Mickael Silvestre of Inter Milan both slipped through the net although the clubs they joined paid or have been ordered to pay a transfer fee.