A World in Union (?) Allez les Bleus!

In exactly twelve months, the Paris Olympics and Paralympics will be finishing. Between now and September 8th, 2024, France will enjoy an exceptional sporting year. For starters, the 2023 Rugby World Cup (RWC) begins tomorrow, a taster of welcoming the world to France.

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These world sporting events start and finish in Paris at Le Stade de France. Between these bookends, however, the staging of the events will have major points of difference in pace and geography. Les JO is obviously the main course of the sporting feast but the games are packed into 15 frantic days. The world cup has a slower rhythm and professional club rugby in France is even pausing itself to savour the 51 days of RWC. La coupe du monde occupies a genuinely national stage – with nine host cities across the country - whereas over 85% of les JO will be happening in the Paris region.

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There is rising excitement in the air. In tomorrow’s blockbuster first match, the attractive and successful host team will play the mythical New Zealand All Blacks. Pre-match, la Marseillaise will meet the famous Haka in a stadium which, after dark, will look like a spaceship illuminated in bleu, blanc, rouge. Even the weather is playing ball and the warm summer is in a period of extra time. On balmy nights and with many fans visiting from les pays anglo-saxons, more beer is anticipated to be drunk in the next seven weeks than in the whole of a normal year. The owner of La Belle Ferronnière, my favourite brasserie just off the Champs Elysées, is optimistic about receiving thirsty “rugbymen” celebrating the rugby ritual of “le troisième mi-temps”.

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The ‘World in Union’ spirit of rugby is boosting trade in shops as well as restaurants. This September, alongside the usual supplies of stationary for la rentrée scolaire, hypermarkets are stocking oval balls and nylon rugby shirts, mostly in blue. The must-have RWC accessory is the official beret embroidered with the logos of the 20 competing nations, an echo of stylish traditions in southwest France.

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My recent visit to Bordeaux was a reminder that Paris is not really a rugby city. Instead, the beating heart of French rugby culture is here in the southwest, with the look of the coloured berets, the lilt of the singsong accents, the music of rugby’s brass bands, the texture of salade landaise (duck gizzards and foie gras) and the earthy taste of red wine. Throughout the seven weeks of the cup, rugby-mad Bordeaux will host one giant open-air party. Every Friday night, Le Choeur de Rugby will sing rugby anthems in front of the opera house in honour of the visiting nations, such as the popular “Flying Fijians”, based near Bordeaux. On match days, ten thousand fans will pour into the “Village Rugby” on the elegant banks of the river Garonne. Even ten days before the tournament, shop windows in this dynamic city were carrying the “Esprit Rugby” logo, fan zones were being constructed and large men in Springbok jerseys were already to be seen drinking outside brasseries.

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Southwestern France is also the home of the nation’s captain, Antoine Dupont, who is to French rugby what Kylian Mbappé is to football. From a farming family in the Hautes Pyrénees, the talented and humble Dupont is not a global celebrity like Mbappé for the simple reason that rugby is not (yet) a truly global sport. World Player of the Year 2021, Dupont is not just the face but also the voice of la coupe. He speaks with the distinctive vowels and extra syllables of le sud-ouest whose accent chantant was recently voted France’s sexiest and most charming regional accent. For the duration of the rugby tournament, the pre-recorded voice of Dupont will be making SNCF announcements at train stations.

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It feels exciting to see the wider Rugby Family arriving in France and bringing the warmth and values of the world game. An example was a powerful moment when the All Black squad visited a New Zealand war cemetery in the Somme and performed a tribute Haka to the fallen. After strikes and riots earlier this year, France has not been a World in Union. Hosting the rugby world cup is an opportunity for a divided and polarised country to demonstrate the best of France.

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Allez les Bleus!

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