MONTEVIDEO (AFP) - France coach Didier Deschamps stressed the importance of his players' behaviour and spirit within the group hours after his team touched down in Uruguay on Sunday ahead of a two-match South American tour.
France, who take on Uruguay on Wednesday before coming up against 2014 World Cup hosts Brazil four days later, have recently been dogged by disciplinary issues.
After players decided to boycott training during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Samir Nasri and Jeremy Menez were then handed bans for their conduct at Euro 2012, while Hatem Ben Arfa and Yann M'Vila, who was later slapped with a lengthy ban after an unauthorised night out while on under-21 duty, were reprimanded for their untoward actions.
And Deschamps, who took over from Laurent Blanc following Les Bleus exit to Spain in Ukraine last June, has laid down the law, saying: "If a player puts the group in difficulty there is no chance he returns."
"We will be uncompromising. I'm not there to see everything that goes on, I'm not on red alert but I will be paying close attention.
"We repeat, we insist and we will continue. I left with a guiding principle to allow autonomy and freedom, but the (rules) are the same for everyone."
The past four meetings between France and reigning Copa America champions Uruguay have remarkably endless goalless, while France are unbeaten in their last six matches against Brazil, including a 1-0 victory in quarter-finals of the 2006 World Cup.
"We are here to play two matches but they are South American nations with a history. The more recent is perhaps that of Brazil but one can't forget what Uruguay represent and they are a team that won a major competition two years ago," he said.
"It's a football land so it's significant to come and play these challenging matches in these two countries." Asked about the withdrawal of Samir Nasri, who pulled out with a knee injury earlier this week, Deschamps responded: "There is always the possibility of having players withdrawing, especially as I named the squad relatively early to warn the players who finished (their seasons) on May 19.
"We have two high-level matches and the players must be ready. If certain ones haven't come it's because we had no guarantee they would be available," he added.
"I would have liked it if (Nasri) was here from a sporting aspect obviously, and also in relation to you (the press), because you have been talking about him a lot.
"I'm not here to say it's too much or not but at least (if he had been here) it would have been finished, you would talk about his return, his behaviour, his level of play. This is unfortunately postponed."
