France players such as Manchester United star Mikael Silvestre have already expressed their unease the Stade de France will have an an ’away’ feel for the World Cup group four qualifying match on Saturday.

The Irish are determined to make the stadium a home away from home as they look for a first victory in the city since 1937, with three defeats and a draw since, all in World Cup qualifiers.

France are not looking like the side which won the World Cup in 1998 and the European Championships two years later, with even Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger conceding the French are “struggling against small teams”, and that all is not going smoothly within new coach Raymond Domenech’s camp.

France certainly appear to be in limbo, particularly after a less-than-convincing start to their campaign last month as a goalless draw at home to Israel was followed by an uninspiring 2-0 win in the Faroe Islands.

On the back of that, Irish optimism is rising, but Kerr is urging caution as he said: “I can understand it for different reasons.

“There’s been lots of negativity with regard to the French, who might be disappointed to only have four points, but to start with four points and not lose a game is not that bad.

“Our performances have also been reasonably consistent. We’ve only lost one game since a defeat to Switzerland a year ago.

“But we are going to be playing a team that were recently World and European champions.

“They have tremendous depth to their squad, with players playing at the top level all the time, while their own league has improved dramatically in recent years.

“We’ve also no great results record against France or a tradition of winning in France, so while we go there with confidence and optimism, we can have no sense of over-confidence whatsoever.

“The Irish public should be realistic to understand that.”

Kerr is also not surprised at the support his ’boys in green’ will have come kick off on Saturday, revealing: “There is a respect of the way the team is playing.

“We’ve played good football for a number of years, but there’s a lot of hope about the current team with regard to some of the results we’ve had and the way we’ve played against the likes of Brazil, Romania, Holland and the Czech Republic.

“It’s given a lot of people a lot of hope, but then we’ve a great tradition of our fans travelling to support the team anyway.

“It might be helped by the fact we don’t have regular Champions League football in Ireland, so people therefore have the desire to go and see the national team.”

Kerr then smiled when he added: “Maybe people have been promising their families they would take them to Paris for a nice weekend – now they have a real reason to go.”