Euro 2016 preparations kick off in Biarritz

Euro 2016 hosts France kicked off preparations for next month's tournament on Tuesday with training in Biarritz on the Atlantic coast. Coach Didier Deschamps, who is from nearby Bayonne, decided to bring the French squad to the Stade Aguilera, home to local rugby team Biarritz Olympique, for five days and four training sessions.

French national coach Didier Deschamps. AFP

The Biarritz training camp was a first get-together to refuel after a gruelling season and allowed the team to get away from the national training centre at Clairefontaine, outside Paris, which will be the French base during the championship from June 10 July.

Sixteen players were to start training on Tuesday: Benoit Costil, Hugo Lloris, Alphonse Aréola, Lucas Digne, Christophe Jallet, Laurent Koscielny, Eliaquim Mangala, Bacary Sagna, Djibril Sidibé, Samuel Umtiti, N'Golo Kanté, Moussa Sissoko, Olivier Giroud, Dimitri Payet, Hatem Ben Arfa and Alexandre Lacazette.

Laer in the week, forwards André-Pierre Gignac, who is with the Mexican Tigres UANL, was to join them.

Other players still hadCup finals obligations for their league sides: PSG and Marseille in France (Blaise Matuidi, Adrien Rabiot, Lassana Diarra, and Steve Mandanda); Barcelona and Sevilla in Spain (Jeremy Mathieu and Kevin Gameiro), Manchester United and Crystal Palace in England (Morgan Schneiderlin, Anthony Martial and Yohan Cabaye), Juventus and AC Milan in Italy (Paul Pogba and Patrice Evra), and Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in Germany (Kingsley Coman).

They will join Deschamps and the rest of the squad on 24 May.

The completed team will hold its first friendly on 30 May against Cameroon in Nantes. The day after, eight standby players, Aréola, Sidibé, Ben Arfa, Lacazette, Schneiderlin, Gameiro, Rabiot and Umtiti will leave unless they have to replace injured players.

Meanwhile, German coach Joachim Loew has put together a preliminary 27-strong team, including young defenders Joshua Kimmich (21) and Julian Weigl (20). Loew will cut his squad from 27 to 23 on 30 May, the day after their friendly against Slovakia, before their opening Euro 2016 Group C game against Ukraine on June 12.