World Cup 2014: France play-off comeback against Ukraine scores one over Marine Le Pen

Les Bleus were trailing 2-0 after the first leg but won 3-0 in Paris

Goal scorer Mamadou Sakho helped France defeat Ukraine (Getty Images)

Vive la différence. On Tuesday morning, readers of Le Parisien woke up to headlines featuring the National Front leader Marine Le Pen's theory that "ultra-liberalism applied to football" was to blame for France's disastrous defeat to Ukraine in the first leg of their World Cup play-off in Kiev.

Twenty-four hours on and images of a wildly celebrating Mamadou Sakho adorned the front pages of newspapers, with L'Equipe summing things up best with a one-word headline: "Respect."

"This will stay with us for life," winger Franck Ribéry said after Didier Deschamps' men became the first side in World Cup play-off history to qualify from a two-goal first-leg deficit. "It's a match we'll never forget."

After her father and predecessor as National Front president Jean-Marie infamously questioned the commitment of Zinedine Zidane and Co before the 1998 World Cup victory on home soil, failure to qualify for Brazil was predicted to be a fillip for the policies of Le Pen and her supporters. But goals from Liverpool defender Sahko, the son of Senegalese parents raised in the Parisian suburb Goutte D'Or that is known as "Little Africa", and Karim Benzema, of Algerian descent, put paid to all that.

"This victory... is neither an exploit, nor an end in itself. It is only a start towards the team's redemption and no one has forgotten the South African fiasco," read a statement from the National Front, which polled nearly 18 per cent in the 2012 presidential elections.

Real Madrid striker Benzema, who went 1,224 minutes without scoring for France earlier this year, said: "We showed we are a great team. Now we can go very far."