Zidane tours Algeria's rebel zone on charity trip

SIDI DAOUD, Algeria, Dec 11 (Reuters) To shouts of ''Long live Zidane'', French footballer Zinedine Zidane toured an earthquake-hit village east of Algiers today on a visit to the heart of rebel country in his troubled ancestral homeland.

''Zizou'', as he is known in France, won a hero's welcome in Sidi Daoud village where a project he helped to fund has built a school and training centre following an earthquake in 2003.

''After the quake that devastated the region I felt I should do something to help,'' Zidane told reporters.

The 2003 earthquake in the Boumerdes region of northern Algeria killed 2,300 people, 100 of them in Sidi Daoud, and made at least 100,000 homeless.

''We are really proud of his gesture,'' said Khedir Said, an administrative worker at the July 5 school, named after the day Algeria won independence from France in 1962.

''Zidane is a real hero,'' said Rania Zenoud, aged nine.

The disaster added to the misery of a nation trying to pull itself out of years of Islamist-linked violence that has killed up to 200,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage.

''Zidane's visit was a great opportunity for our officials to visit our village, because without Zidane's decision to visit us we probably would have been totally forgotten, as usual,'' said unemployed political science graduate AbdelHak Nasil, 24.

''WE LOVE ZIDANE'' Political strife remains a danger for the village because it lies in the Boumerdes district of the Kabylie region, a bastion for Islamist rebels trying to overthrow the government.

The army and guerrillas clash sporadically in surrounding hills, valleys and forests, albeit at a much lower level than at the height of the bloodshed in the 1990s.

Nasil said the situation had improved since the 1990s when Islamists sometimes held sway in local affairs.

''I remember a time when as a boy I was not able to study with my sister because they decided to split the classes between boys and girls, and when French was banned from our school,'' he said.

Zidane shook hands with teachers, administrators and pupils and inspected a classroom adorned with a giant poster of him and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Zidane's brother Noredine, accompanying him on the trip, told Reuters: ''Being here is a big emotion. I hope the visit will provide happiness to the thousands of young Algerians who received my brother as a hero.'' Zidane's entourage later moved on to the village of Beni Amran, where hundreds greeted him chanting: ''We love Zidane''.

Security for his visit, which is expected to end on Friday, is especially tight following a bomb attack on a bus carrying foreign oil workers in an Algiers suburb yesterday that killed one Algerian and wounded nine foreigners.

It was the first armed attack on expatriates in many years.

Widely regarded as the finest footballer of his generation, Zidane retired from soccer after being sent off in July's World Cup final for head-butting Italy's Marco Materazzi. Italy defeated France in the final after a penalty shoot-out.

Zidane's Algerian parents moved in 1962 to the southern French city of Marseille, where he grew up. He has rarely visited Algeria, but he is seen by many here as a symbol of hope in a country where the jobless rate among people under 30 is estimated to be about 70 percent.

REUTERS PDS KN2036