Rugby league in France

Rugby league has been played in France since 1934. As with rugby union, it was introduced by the English and the heartland of the game is in the south of the country.

During the Second World War, in association with the French Rugby Union Federation, the sport was banned by the Vichy government, an act from which it has struggled to recover. There has been a recent resurgence of the sport following the admission of Catalans Dragons to the European Super League. In 2012, there were approximately 30,000 active participants.

Rugby football was introduced into France by the British in the early 1870s. It quickly began to flourish in the poorer, more rural south. The French rugby clubs remained aligned with the Home Nation unions when rugby split into Rugby Union and Northern Union (later renamed Rugby League) in 1895.

Reports of professionalism and on-field violence in internationals led to France's suspension from the Five Nations Championship in 1931. Following development work by both Harry Sunderland (on behalf of the Australian Rugby League) and the Rugby Football League based in England, the Australian and British Test teams played an exhibition game at Stade Pershing in Paris in late December 1933. In 1934, Jean Galia took a French team that had never played rugby league to Yorkshire and Lancashire in England. The French Rugby League was formed on 6 April 1934. Starved of quality international competition, many French rugby union players turned to rugby league. With the sport's acceptance of professionalism and spectator-friendly rules, the French viewed it as a modern and innovative game, and it grew quickly in popularity. Within five years, the number of rugby league clubs was approaching the number of rugby union clubs. By 1939, the French league had 225 clubs and the national side beat England and Wales to take the 1938-39 European Championship, their first. In the same year, three leading rugby union clubs – Narbonne, Carcassonne and Brive – switched to rugby league.