French Rugby League

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Though earlier attempts had been made, the first successful foray on the path towards establishing rugby league in France came in 1933 when the touring Australian Kangaroos played against England at Stade Pershing in Paris. Australia easily won the contest 63-13, and the free-flowing football found much appeal with the French.

Jean Galia

In March 1934, former French rugby union star Jean Galia brought together France’s first rugby league team, making a tour of England with matches against clubs. Upon the team’s return home, the first French rugby league clubs were formed, and the game was up and running.

Quickly embracing the opportunity, an international match between England and France was arranged and played at the Buffalo Velodrome in Paris.

With 20,000 Parisians cheering them on, an entertaining game won by England 32-21 gave great enthusiasm for the pioneers of the code in France. The Leeds club from Yorkshire made a tour of France, and then later in 1934 the French Rugby League Federation was formed.

In 1935 France secured a 15-all draw against England, and were granted entry to the International Championship tournament. It was a rapid rise, continued by the first Test matches against Australia in 1937.

With a clear intent on pushing ever upwards, the French began lobbying for the introduction of a Rugby League World Cup tournament. In February 1939 the French rugby league team became the first sporting team from France to defeat England on their opponent’s soil (winning 12-9 at St Helens). Popularity in the code saw it begin to outrival rugby union as the nation’s preferred brand of rugby, with over 220 rugby league clubs formed in just five years.

Developments though were soon brought to a halt with the outbreak of WW2. In December 1941 the wartime Vichy government then took the astonishing decision to issue an order abolishing rugby league. It seized the FRL’s assests and financial reserves, and decreed it unlawful to play the game.

A 2002 government inquiry into the ban found: “When Vichy's department of sport was set up, influential officials of the French Rugby federation endeavoured to eliminate this competitor, which they claimed was a dangerous deviant form of rugby union.”

At the end of the war, General de Gaulle lifted the ban, but the FRL never had its assests restored, and the code was dealt a near fatal blow. Until 1990 it could not even call itself rugby - instead going by the tag of “Jeu à 13” (play with 13).

In the 1950s, with more than a few former French resistance fighters in their ranks, France was still able to muster a formidable international team. With more than a dash of creative flair and almost indifference to the tenents of the game, French teams threw convention out the window.

Their first tour of Australia in 1951 has been acclaimed as the most entertaining visitors of the century. In their wake, they were dubbed by the Sydney press as producers of “champange rugby”, with the team’s goal kicking fullback Puig Aubert a particular crowd favourite. Through the 1950s France won three consecutive series against the Kangaroos in a golden era for the game.

Despite the flourish of success in the 1950s, the underlying loss of clubs and development brought about the WW2 ban, took its toll. Rugby league in France also had to contend with FRU and its clubs having little concern for the IRB’s governing rules of amateurism.

In the decades that followed, lingering discrimination against rugby league continued, and in many respects it is remarkable that the code has endured in France.

“Le Championnat de France de Rugby à XIII” has been the major rugby league tournament in France since the 1930s. The championship is presently divided into several divisions, with the top league being an 11-team “Elite One Championship”. Each year four French teams also take part in England’s Challenge Cup.

In 2006 the Perpignan based club formerly known as UTC (Union Treiziste Catalan – which can trace its lineage back to the first French club of 1935) entered the European Super League as the Catalans Dragons, reaching the semi-finals in 2009. In 2007 the Dragons became the first non-English based team to reach the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley in London (losing to St Helens).

The French national jersey is adorned with the “le coq” (Gallic rooster) motif, and comprised of the red, white and blue of the Tricolore flag. Both the “le coq” and the Tricolore came into prominent use as symbols of liberty and freedom during the French Revolution.

The team is also known as “Les Chanticleers”, a term which traces its origins to Chanticleer, a rooster appearing in medieval fables, most notably in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.