Bistros, riots and rugby: my life in France

I was fortunate to play and coach rugby in France for a combined 11 years. I spent five years playing for a second-division side, St Claude — in the Jura region close to the eastern border with Switzerland — from 1985 to 1990, then four years in Paris with Boulogne-Billancourt, also a second-division side, until 1994.

After my time coaching the Springboks had come to an end in 2000, I went back to France and coached Stade Français from 2002 to 2004. I have a deep knowledge and appreciation for the country, both culturally and from a rugby perspective, and I’ve had really good experience of what the game is like there.

During my time there from 1985 to 1994, I operated as a player/coach and the rugby was largely amateur. I feel very proud to have helped both St Claude and Boulogne-Billancourt win promotion to the French first division, albeit in Serie B, during my time there. What a wonderful cultural experience it was!

I remember getting a call from Dugald MacDonald, who was a well-travelled SA and Western Province loose forward who had played in Italy and France. He told me about an opportunity at a small club, St Claude, who played in the French second division.

Their coach and captain were leaving for another club. His name was Nigel Horton, a lock who made 20 appearances for England between 1969 and 1980. Dugald told me the job came with an opportunity to run your own business, the Café le Club, which was a small bar and bistro. All the profits would go to me, and when Dugald gave me the figures, it was a lot more than I was earning in SA.

I was already married at the time and my wife Jane was finishing her university degree, so I decided to go over for six weeks to test the waters ... and the rest is history.

I didn’t speak a word of French and had never studied it at school. I had played some rugby in Italy in 1982 and 1983, so I could speak a little bit of Italian, but French? Pas du tout! (nothing at all!) The first couple of weeks were very difficult. I was working behind a bar and didn’t understand a word people were saying to me. This made for some interesting food and drinks orders, because they didn’t speak any English and didn’t understand a word I was saying either.

The English teacher at the town’s school would arrive and ask me how to pronounce English words, because even she couldn’t speak the language fluently. I was completely immersed in a French environment.

It took me a month or so before I was understanding French better than Italian. After two or three months, I could understand all the rugby terminology and the words used in the cafe regarding food and drinks, and I was starting to feel confident enough to speak French, too. Six months in, I think I was speaking quite well.

My definition of how you know when you’re starting to understand a language well is when you can detect humour and sarcasm. I remember locals would come in on a Monday morning and say, “Nick, you weren’t on form on Saturday”; and I would be offended because I knew I had played well. “I didn’t play badly, I scored two tries,” I would protest, to laughter.

St Claude might have been a small club playing in the second tier of French rugby, but that certainly didn’t change how competitive the players and supporters were. A clear tribalism exists in how the French support their teams. Rugby there is not played on a regional or provincial basis, as it is in SA; instead, every town has its own team.

At weekends, the town will turn out almost in its entirety to support its rugby team, and it is incredibly special. St Claude, I remember, had a population of just 13,000 during my stay there. If we won on a Saturday, the bistro would do really well, and I’d have guys coming in for coffee or drinks throughout the week and wanting to talk about the game. If we lost, however, it was a different story, and I felt it in my pocket.

The citizens of St Claude became extremely emotional about winning and losing. In one of the seasons we got through to the second division final, and I think there were around 7,500 of our fans — more than half the town’s population — at the neutral venue where the match was played.

The French really do buy into a successful side, and when things are going well they are some of the best supporters in the world. It works both ways, though. French supporters will also be very critical if the side doesn’t perform, and they can lose interest and simply stay away if the struggles continue.

It is exactly the same with the national side. If France are going through a rough patch, the fans will stop watching and switch channels to soccer or something else. But if the side are in a good space and performing, as they are presently, you get this massive groundswell of public opinion, affection and support behind the national team.

I remember when I was Springbok coach and we were playing against France in Paris in 1997, the crowd began by cheering for their side, but by halftime they were booing them off the field. In the second half, the crowd started supporting us and applauding the rugby we played. We won the game 52-10.

When you play against the French, you know that if you put them under pressure so that they start making mistakes, there is a good chance their fans will quickly turn on them and make it even harder for them. In some ways, it is similar to SA where our supporters are also hugely emotional about the fortunes of the Springboks.

Being the French coach operating in such a volatile, frantic and fickle environment is a tough gig, but Fabien Galthie has done a fantastic job and he has the support of the country going into their home World Cup.

I have such fond memories of my time in France, particularly at St Claude. I remember another occasion when we were playing a side away from home — I can’t remember who — and we were far better than them.

I think the referee must have been influenced by the opposition club president or management, because we were being penalised for absolutely everything, and we ended up losing a very close game — I think it was 15-12 — despite having been comfortably better than our opponents. We had scored a couple of tries, and all their points were from penalties.

Some travelling fans had made the trip with us, and one supporter was so angry that he waited for the referee to get into his car and then chased him down the road and onto the highway. That is obviously unacceptable behaviour that would earn someone a life ban today, but it does illustrate how incredibly emotional French fans can get when things don’t go their way.

Another infamous story from St Claude happened before I arrived there, though I was quickly made aware of it. A group of supporters tipped the referee’s car over and rolled it down a hill after a home defeat which they felt was poorly officiated. The vehicle landed in a river!

I also remember an incident where we had about 5,000 fans at a home game and they all invaded the pitch, leading to a massive fistfight between them and the visiting supporters. Three guys were put in prison that weekend, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that French fans can go in way over the top in support of their team.

It hasn’t been a surprise for me to see that in games played in France, the television angles presented to the television match official (TMO) and referee are often strangely selective, or that communication between the referee and the TMO sometimes breaks down for no apparent reason. We have seen it in Test matches, including the one against the Springboks in November 2022 (France won 30-26), and more recently in European Champions Cup and Challenge Cup matches.

I found France very different from SA, where I always felt you had an opportunity to win whether you were playing at home or away. In SA, a game of rugby was simply between two teams and the referee would always try to be fair. In France, however, there has always been a tendency for home fans to expect that their side will win.

You would find a winning percentage of something like 80% for home teams during those days. Even in defeats, you would see the worst team in the division losing by just a single score to the best team in the division, if they were playing at home. It was quite bizarre. The referee simply wouldn’t allow the visitors to humiliate the home team, especially when he was getting screamed at for every decision he blew against the hosts.

It has obviously improved with the age of professionalism, but inside every French supporter is this kind of passion. The French are so loyal to their sides. If you’re born in a town with a rugby club, then that is your rugby club for life. It doesn’t matter where you end up, you are tied to that team forever. This translates into a very strong support base for the national team, but they will support their local team more if the national team are struggling.

If France are on a good run, though, they capture the enthusiasm and passion of the fanatics in the stands. There is something almost romantic about all of this, and it makes France a very difficult place in which to win for visiting teams.

We know from the 2019 World Cup that the Springbok management group put a ridiculous amount of work into planning their trip to Japan, mapping out every single detail. They conducted a reconnaissance mission the year before the tournament, trialling different hotels in the cities they would be staying in. Everything from the quality of the kitchen service to the comfort of the beds was evaluated, and journeys between hotels, airports, railway stations and training venues were all taken into account.

I have no doubt that Rassie Erasmus, team manager Charles Wessels and the logistics team will have done something similar for France 2023, but they can also take comfort from many of the Springboks having visited France numerous times — some are even based there — and will have a good understanding of the environment and culture.

France is an incredible country with beautiful regions, wonderful wine and amazing food. It is blessed with stunning countryside, spectacular mountains and rivers, and a great deal of farmland. Every region has its own food speciality — the Toulouse sausage, for example — and there are really special dishes that come out of every region. There is so much good food that you don’t know where to start. It’s a gastronomic paradise.

There is so much to take in and experience, and it is the perfect place to host a World Cup. Players from all visiting countries, regardless of their skill sets or levels of experience, will soak it all in and have a tournament they will never forget. Every other time the World Cup has been played in France, they have had to share it with another nation, and in 2023 they will have it all to themselves. This is a fully French World Cup.

It’s sad for SA, of course, having lost out on the rights to host the 2023 edition in controversial circumstances in 2017. An independent board had told World Rugby that SA was the favoured choice as host but France somehow managed to sneak the vote. It is a pity. South Africans have not had a World Cup since 1995 and absolutely deserve another one given everything the country has contributed to rugby over the last 30 years.

There were clearly political moves behind the scenes that encouraged some of the key voting blocs to support France rather than the recommended SA, and the way all of that unfolded was an embarrassment for World Rugby.

From a rugby point of view, boy, do the French dislike England! They are not on the same side of the draw as England, of course, but the crowds will ensure hostile environments every time the English play.

Weirdly, the French supporters have always been allies of the Celtic teams, so they will support Wales, Scotland and Ireland, since they have a lot of respect for those nations. They also respect the southern hemisphere players and countries, so I think they will be very warm hosts, especially outside Paris in the regions.

The capital is a tourist destination throughout the year, but in places such as Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille, Biarritz and Toulon players and squads will get fantastic welcomes from rugby fans keen to embrace this spectacle.

The best advice for SA’s travelling fans will be to speak Afrikaans, Zulu or Xhosa initially, because the French will take offence if you use English and you won’t be served that quickly!

France really do have a great chance of winning this tournament at home, and it will translate into electric crowds whenever they are playing. The French had a 14-match winning streak under Galthie before they eventually lost to Ireland away in the 2023 Six Nations, and there is a lot of confidence and belief in the side right now.

In fact, there will be a groundswell of support for all northern hemisphere teams, with their supporters making the short trip to France from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy. In many ways, and because success at the competition has been so limited over the years, this is a home World Cup for all those nations. They will support each other (with the exception of the French and England!) in their battle with the southern hemisphere sides, and it will create a northern hemisphere base that will undoubtedly be a theme of the World Cup.

We shall see that clearly when the Springboks take on Ireland and Scotland in their pool, while France against the All Blacks in the tournament opener is a blockbuster group game that will bring the country to a standstill. There will be as much pressure and tension in that game as there will be in the semifinals and final, because so much hangs on it in terms of finishing top or second in the pool. France will have a huge amount of support.

The good news for the visiting sides is that September and October are still largely good months, weatherwise. It will obviously be cooler in Paris and up north than in the south, but we should still expect temperatures of between 15˚C and 20˚C, which will not be uncomfortable. There will still be nice sunny days, especially in Biarritz, Marseille, Toulon and Toulouse. That southwestern region gets really good weather late into the year.

When I was coaching Stade Français the weather was still fine in October, even in Paris. I don’t think it will be particularly cold, and hopefully it won’t be too wet and rainy either. In my experience, it is only in November and December that things start getting really miserable.

The weather is another area where the South Africans will have an advantage over their southern hemisphere neighbours, because they have been exposed to European conditions regularly for the last two seasons after their move to the United Rugby Championship. Playing in Japan in 2019, I believe, would have been a much greater challenge for the Springboks, since most of them were experiencing those foreign conditions and a completely different culture there for the first time.

Of course, the Springboks have won in France before. Jake White’s perfect run at the 2007 edition of the tournament ended with SA celebrating their second of three World Cup triumphs to date as John Smit lifted the Webb Ellis Cup into the Paris night sky on October 20.

The final in 2023 will take place 16 years and eight days later, on October 28, at the same venue, and South Africans certainly have enough reason to be optimistic about the Boks producing the same result.