Vannes in Top 14, Rennes solid in Nationale, a sixth consecutive year of growth in registered members and the FFR congress due in Brest in early July: Fabrice Quénéhervé, president of the Ligue de Bretagne, takes stock of a season that ticks every box.
Up from Régionale 3 to Régionale 1 in two years, from 60 to 180 registered members, with a brand-new rugby house and an accredited rugby school: RC Pontivyen has no shortage of dreams fulfilled. And it is keeping a few more in reserve. Meet a club growing the oval game in the heart of Brittany.
On 6 June, La Roche-sur-Yon brings the six national women's finals together on a single site for the first time. A Vendée showpiece that also crowns FC Yonnais Rugby's commitment to developing the women's game.
Four episodes to look rugby straight in the eye. Doping, opaque salaries, violence, racism, concussions: the list of cancers is long. But facing them, there are also those doing the healing. Final instalment — the file itself stays open. What comes next is for you to write
300 matches as a pro, an Alsatian with a Lorraine name who passed through Racing, Oyonnax, Pau and Vannes. Fabrice Metz, a 130-kilo lock whose donkey work was never found wanting, is putting his boots away. The final curtain - but the cutting will carry on…
How an Erasmus + project led to a partnership between the Polish rugby federation and the Pays de la Loire league. The story, from the Pays de la Loire to Warsaw.
HIA protocols, smart mouthguards, video refereeing, the end of the spear tackle: in 20 years, French rugby has transformed the way it deals with physical injuries. An X-ray of a medical revolution in a collective contact sport.
Two French championship titles with Stade Français, 89 caps with the Squadra Azzurra, seven years in the coaching box and a detour into delivering lorries. At 43, Mirco Bergamasco is coming back to the oval-ball game with one conviction rooted deep inside him: the mind is the fourth pillar of performance. He is looking for a job at the top level and he says so without beating about the bush.
Born in Gouaix in 1969, within a whisker of shutting up shop in the 1990s before being reborn thanks to the rugby section of the Nogent-sur-Seine nuclear power station: Provins rugby club is celebrating its 57th birthday. An international youth tournament, tours to South Africa, a visit from Thomas Lombard: the story of a southern graft that took in Seine-et-Marne.
Nationale 2 champions, safe in Nationale on the pitch, a 2 million budget, the smallest in the division. REC Rennes have nothing to envy anyone. Portrait of a club that wins with what it has, and above all with what it is.
Injuries, concussions, addictions, violence: rugby pays a heavy price for its intensity. But the oval-ball game is not sitting on its hands. A survey of the ills and the remedies of a combat sport that is treating itself.
In Clisson, in the Nantes vineyards, the SAC is not just a rugby club: 463 registered members, 114 years of history, a three-star rugby school and Hellfest as a partner. Under the presidency of Jean-Michel Bonnet, the club has reached Fédérale 3 a year ahead of its own plan. Portrait of an institution that had everything except a first team to match.
Rugby's European cups are 31 years old. And they have never looked so close to their death throes. Unreadable formats, South African teams, a lost public: a look back at the wreck of an idea born in 1996, driven by Marcel Martin and today betrayed by his heirs.
Three clubs for 300,000 inhabitants, a 33-year-old player-president and missionaries of the oval ball in the most rural department of the Pays de la Loire. Welcome to the Mayenne, where rugby grows between two fields.
Financial excesses, clubs in danger, sanctions handed down mid-season: A2R (ex-DNACG) keeps watch over the economic health of French professional rugby. The first instalment of our series "Is it serious, doctor?", a full check-up on French rugby.
Caught between a shortage of pitches and the all-powerful grip of football, the president of the Brittany Rugby League, Fabrice Quénéhervé, does not mince his words. In his view, the growth of the oval ball in Brittany runs up against "dogmatism" and psychological barbed wire that he fully intends to tear down.
EXCLUSIVE. An Olympic champion in Paris, Stephen Parez is going through a spell of physical turbulence. Between pectoral operations and an improbable household accident involving a microwave, the France captain opens up about his long road to Calvary and the steel in his mind, fixed on 2028.
Between the final sprint of an Élite 1 dominated by Stade Toulousain and the imminent start of the Six Nations against Italy, French women's rugby is entering a pivotal period. Here is the full weekend programme.
