Antoine Dupont doesn’t do many interviews. “I don’t necessarily like to talk about myself,” he has said, “to do yet another interview where I talk about what I’ve done, how I’ve played, and how my game has evolved; honestly, it tires me more than anything else these days.” But after France’s last grand slam, he did sit down to record a podcast with the entrepreneur Alexandre Mars, which ended with a game of word association. “Rugby?” Mars says. “Ball,” Dupont replies. “Toulouse?” “Rugby”; “Galthié?” “Glasses”; “Travel?” “Family”; “Idol?” “Michalak”; “France 2023?” “Victory”; “Paris 2024?” “Victory.”
Three years later, Dupont has notched up one of those last two achievements. Last summer he led the French sevens team to victory in the Paris Olympics in – shut your eyes and picture it – one of the great seven-minute stretches of sport, with two tries and an assist as they came back from 7-0 to beat Fiji, who had never lost a match in the Olympics, and win France’s first gold medal.
Six months later, Dupont is back to try again for the other target. His chance in the 2023 World Cup has gone, ended by that one-point loss to South Africa in the quarter-finals, but he has been talking about how motivated he is by the thought of winning the next one, in Australia in 2027. After he skipped last year’s Six Nations to prepare for the Olympics, he leads his gifted team into this tournament, starting with Wales on Friday night at the Stade de France, knowing that, in the words of L’Équipe, it is past time for the “coronation of the golden generation”. For all the tries this French team have scored, for all the Tests they’ve won, that grand slam in 2022 is still their only trophy.
Fabien Galthié defended their record in the Six Nations this week. They have finished second in four of the five tournaments since he took charge of the team, behind Ireland in both of the last two. “In six years we’ve won 80% of our matches, that’s out of the ordinary,” he said. “For me, a grand slam and four second places is very good.” But for a player like Dupont, very good isn’t good enough. “There’s a lot of disappointment with this team’s track record, given its potential,” Dupont said this week. “This frustration must be transformed into motivation.”
If it were only the winning, that would be one thing. But, surprising as it might be to the rest of us, whose chief experience of French rugby is watching them drub everyone else in the Champions Cup, the sport here is in crisis. The French Rugby Federation (FFR) is running an €18m (£15m) operating deficit, and the headlines this week haven’t been about Dupont’s comeback, but Galthié’s decision to pick Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jégou on the bench. Auradou and Jégou were arrested after being accused of a rape during a drunken night out on France’s tour of Argentina last summer, and while the case was dismissed in December, an appeal will take place on 10 February.
Galthié refused to be drawn on the selection this week. “I’ve answered these questions a lot and today, it’s the announcement of the French team and the players who deserve to play,” he said. ‘I’m going to focus solely on these questions. We’re going to focus on the match against Wales, on the Six Nations tournament and on questions that concern rugby.” But the French press and public aren’t about to let him get away so easily, and the decision has sparked public comment from a range of former players, as well as pundits, lawyers and even philosophers.
The FFR brought in a new code of conduct after the tour, which stipulates that no one is allowed to drink alcohol without the express permission of the coaching team, and that guests are only allowed in communal areas. “High-level rugby plays a social and cultural role of prime importance in France,” it states. “Every member of a French team must contribute to preserving an exemplary image.” Which has only prompted questions about why they felt able to select Auradou and Jégou when the appeal has yet to be held. The players, who deny any wrongdoing, had been stood down indefinitely and were only deemed eligible for selection again when the initial case was dismissed.
It wasn’t an isolated incident. Melvyn Jaminet has been banned for 34 weeks after he posted an Instagram video promising to “head-butt the first Arab I see”. Bastien Chalureau was included in the World Cup squad even after he was given a six-month suspended sentence for assault. L’Équipe has just premiered a documentary called Rugby: The house is on fire, which includes interviews with the former partner of Hans N’Kinsi, the Beziers lock who was sentenced to 18 months for domestic violence, a group of female players from Bobigny who were racially abused by the opposition during a match last year, and a hotel owner whose property was ransacked by a group of Top 14 players.
If you played that word association game with the average man, woman or kid in the street and asked them the first thing that came into their heads when you said “rugby”, anyone who loves the sport might not like the answer. The French need a reason to feel good about the game again, and fast, especially when the FFR’s development strategy has been all about using the Rugby World Cup, and the Olympics, as an opportunity to build its popularity outside its old heartlands.
It won’t be easy. After Wales on Friday night, France play away games against England, Italy and Ireland before finishing off with another home game against Scotland. They have a handful of injuries, too, to their defensive captain Gaël Fickou, his fellow centre Jonathan Danty, lock Thibaud Flament and wing Damian Penaud. There’s such strength in depth in the French game that Galthié has been able to replace them all easily enough, and the coach has his star fly-half Romain Ntamack back too, as well – of course – as that man Dupont. Over to you, Antoine …
