France coach Didier Deschamps has no intention of acting like a teacher to his players despite their controversial behavior in recent years, he said on Wednesday.

Deschamps expects his team to have learnt from the experiences of the 2010 World Cup and this year's European Championship.

"I am not here to tell them what they can do or can not," he said. "They are not children and I am not a nursery or high-school teacher. I am here to help them, to guide them."

Four players were summoned to disciplinary hearings after Euro 2012, with Samir Nasri currently serving a three-match ban for abusing a reporter and Jeremy Menez suspended for one game for insulting the referee during their quarterfinal exit.

Hatem Ben Arfa and Yann M'Vila, who are not in the squad for the opening 2014 World Cup qualifier in Finland on Friday, were also warned by the French soccer federation for minor incidents after the defeat to Spain in June.

The incidents came just two years after the France squad caused outrage in its home country by going on strike in South Africa when Nicolas Anelka was expelled over a row with then coach Raymond Domenech.

"There are rules but we did not enforce anything exceptional," Deschamps said.

"Some things can trouble the group's life, like the new technologies which isolate people, tend to make them selfish when they are supposed to share some time together."

He suggested the players should be better educated earlier in their lives.

"Rules can be set when they are young, in the academies, at school," he said. "The sooner the better. Because when they grow up, they respect some values or do not."

Still, the former midfielder, who marshalled France to its 1998 World Cup victory, has asked his players to respect some symbols, like the national anthem.

(China Daily 09/07/2012 page23)