French Rugby Football A Cultural History

by Dine, Philip

• ISBN13: 9781859733271
• ISBN10: 1859733271
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

As France's oldest team sport, rugby football has throughout its 125-year history reflected major changes in French society. This book analyzes for the first time the complex variety of motives that have led the French to adopt and remake this rather unlikely British sport in their own image. A major site for the construction of masculine, class-based regional and national identities, France's tradition of 'Champagne rugby' continues to be as subject to dramatic upheavals as the society that produced it. The game's precocious professionalism and endemic violence have not infrequently caused the French to be cast as international pariahs. Such isolation, exacerbated by internal politics, has led the French not only to encourage the extension of the sport beyond its British imperial base (into Italy and Romania, for instance), but also to engage in some uncomfortable tactical alliances, most obviously with apartheid South Africa. Taking his analysis both on and off the field, the author tackles these issues and much more: the relationship of sport and the state (including particularly the Vichy period and the period under de Gaulle); professionalization; the persistence of colonial and postcolonial structures (including the role of ethnic minorities); and gender issues - especially masculine identities. At the same time he links the evolution of the sport to the broader context of French socio-economic, political and cultural history. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural analysis of sport or French popular culture.

Author Biography

Philip Dine, Loughborough University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction: 'Only Fabulous French can do this'	1	(18)
Part I: The Rise of le rugby-panache, 1880-1914
Pioneers and Patriots in Paris	19	(22)
The Expansion into the Provinces	41	(20)
Part II: Rugby Goes to War, 1914-1945
Identity and Brutality in the South-West	61	(18)
French Rugby in the Wilderness	79	(16)
Marechal nous voila!-The Wartime Betrayal of le rugby a treize	95	(20)
Part III: Uncorking le rugby-champagne, 1945-1968
The Second Miracle of Lourdes	115	(14)
'Mission Accomplished!' - 1968 and All That	129	(22)
Part IV: Towards a Global Game, 1968-2000
The Struggle for the Soul of le rugby francais	151	(20)
Out of Africa: Professionalism's Winds of Change	171	(22)
Conclusion: A la recherche du rugby perdu	193	(6)
Bibliography	199	(12)
Appendices	211	(8)
Index	219