Ad blocker detected: Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker on our website.
If you've ever been to Vichy, you'll know how hard it is to spot the landmarks of the wartime era.
Understandably perhaps, there are no signs up saying: "Come and visit the home of France's disgrace. Gestapo headquarters - this way."
The centre of the town is in fact of extraordinary 19th Century elegance - the Emperor Napoleon III wanted Europe's royalty to make Vichy and its spa an annual fixture. So it's all shady promenades, bandstands, and a glassed-in sanatorium for the taking of the waters.
But if you want to see the hotel where Marshal Petain ran his collaborationist government - or where the various ministries and foreign embassies were - then you need a good guide.
The legacy of World War II has passed into history now - only people in their 70s or older will actually remember when their town was the seat of government - but I had come to Vichy to explore one curious footnote from that time.
Young upstart
Because it was in December 1941 - in his office overlooking the park - that Philippe Petain signed an order prepared for him by the ministry of sport... banning rugby league.
Why - you might ask - would a government troubled enough with haggling with the Nazi occupier, registering Jews, and promoting its catholic-nationalist revolution, bother suppressing a game enjoyed by tens of thousands of young men?
The story is a complicated one, and one which has repercussions down to this day.
In the 1930s French rugby league - or rugby a treize (rugby for 13) - was rugby union's upstart younger cousin.
It arrived in France as late as 1934 - half a century after the 15-man game - but in the five years before the start of World War II, it advanced so quickly as to pose a real challenge to the supremacy of rugby union.
Rugby union was in steep decline. The national team was banned from the Five Nations tournament because of violence on the pitch, and the number of clubs was falling every year.
Lobbying
Rugby league was taking up the slack, and as sports papers from the time show, there was a groundswell of enthusiasm for the game - culminating in 1939 when the national side went to St Helens and became the first French team - in any sport - to beat England on their home ground.
By the outbreak of war there were 225 league clubs in France - all set up in just five years.
Rugby league was a professional game - players signed annual contracts with their clubs and had control over their careers.
It was seen as a modern, innovative sport - and was closely associated with the left-wing Popular Front government that came to power in France in 1936.
This was already enough to damn it in the eyes of the Petain government, but what modern research has shown is that the decision to actually prohibit the sport was the result of lobbying from powerful figures within rugby union close to the Vichy regime.
This year a French government inquiry found that "influential officials in the French Rugby Federation endeavoured to eliminate the competitor, which they claimed was a deviant form of rugby union."
Blacklist
So the ban came in. Rugby league's assets were seized, grounds were taken over, players were invited to repent.
Those who didn't were blacklisted.
Of course all this would be just a fascinating historical anecdote were it not for the fact that - acording to many rugby league enthusiasts - the effects of the ban are still being felt today.
After the war rugby a treize was unbanned - but in the spirit of deliberate amnesia, no-one wanted to explore too closely what had happened.
The result was that the game never received full recognition and indeed right up until 10 years ago it was actually forbidden to call itself rugby at all. Officially it was the jeu a treize - the game for 13.
The sport never got its assets back, and it's still impossible for anyone studying to become a state sports instructor to take rugby league as their option.
Some clubs find it hard to get access to playing fields.
No compensation
And the state of the sport in general?
Marginalised.
Today 20,000 people play it, compared with the quarter of a million who play rugby union.
The national side is no longer seen as a serious international competitor, and an attempt to get a French club into the British-based superleague collapsed.
And so to today - when after years in which the sport's governing body preferred not to rock the boat - a new generation of supporters is emerging that wants the truth to be told.
They know financial compensation is unlikely.
But they want government help for the sport, and above all an official apology... for that signature 61 years ago, in a hotel overlooking the park.
Yeah, great article that. French Union siding with the Nazis to get rid of League. Typical arrogance of that sport.
We see that arrogance with John O'Neills continued sniping at League. Funny how it stopped when we got 90 000 to our grand final and they got 13 000 to theirs.
Thats a bull$h!t reason to hate a sport, because some idiot french frog signed a piece of paper in a french town over 55 years ago, during a time in the world when sport was definatly not of the highest concern.
Isnt it far more interesting to consider why RL has withered away in France as explained in the article.
isnt it a fact that both codes were amateur in France at the time, and RL therefore did not have the advantage of being able to pay the players as the code´s clubs could in the UK, and without that advantage the game died.
what does that say for the codes future now that the sports are on equal terms again since union went pro.
furthermore if RL is in such good health why are all its supporters on both sides of the world so filled with paranoia constantly feeling there is some sort of conspiracy against their sport now apparently dating back to vichy france, even suggesting RL own the term RWC or whatever.
To me RL is a fantastically boring sport with the same constantly repetitive play, very much inferior to union.
However it is true as RL followers always say that many union games are all about kicking, then a pile up and a penalty for some unknown reason.
RU do have many scrappy games, but most likely its something they will look at now its a pro game.
football(soccer) made some very slight changes to the rules (or actually just interpretations of them) in the 80´s and it was crucial to the huge growth the sport has experienced.
If RU can make the game flow better, well its goodnight RL
I do not hate RU for this. have relevant reasons to dislike the sport. But the French RL story is a great read. Thwere is a book called "The Forbidden Game". Compelling stuff.
France still has a largely amateur RL scene. The transfer of properties was a deep cut because European sporting groups rely a lot on land holdings. The bannning of the term "rugby" was also a harmful act in terms of marketing. It's decline is attributed to money, poor administrative vision (even now with the head of the FFR13 Mr Ferre) and an institutionalised discrimination (schools banning RL, no compensation for Vichy).
A lobby group known as Treize Actif has stated in France to push for answers. A French govt report has laid blame at the FFR for what occurred but the issue of compensation is yet to be resolved. The RL president is not keen on pushing for copensation (God knows why) but it would be quite significant. A lot of land and money may change hands (relative to the FFR13's current status).
I've always admired France. In general, they're the non-English speaking country that has embraced Rugby (both kinds) the most. And they play an entertaining brand of the sports.
How appropriate. Some of the reasons I dislike RU was shown in tonights semi final.
1) Slow game (it was raining but accounting for that the ball remained in the breakdown an unusually long time. To be fair it was England doing this more than France).
2) The winning team didn't score a try. They kicked 8 goals. The losing team scored the only try of the match.
3) How many kick fests do they want. Kicking between fullbacks and wingers. Good Lord!
I know you're all wanting to harass me now with the continuing debate. I ask that you refrain. I just wanted to demonstrate why I'm not a fan of the sport and to show that it wasn't for political reasons.
I agree with you on that one jeffles.
The Eng v France semi final was the most boring match of rugby union i've ever seen. Any team that relies soley on its fly-half does not deserve to be in the RWC final. If england do any of their boring, piss weak, 14 guys cant play rugby but 1 guy can style during the biggest match for 4 years then i'm gonna be freakin angry. English rugby is crap. If they had any other Fly-Half then they'ed have been knocked out in the QF's. The conditions didn't help but they could've tried to score a 5 pointer. whenever they got close they tried a drop goal.
GO THE WALLABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
England have been ranked one in the world for quite some time, and have beaten Australia the last several times scoring plenty of tries on each occassion.
Now theyre boring, because they win a semi without scoring a try, but look at the match. France did not create their try, it was gifted them by an english mistake, and incredibly, that remained their only score.They couldnt even get close enough to the english line to score on a penalty, while england came as close to a try as you can get
Yes england scored on the penalties that an ever more desperat France gave them, what were they supposed to do? only for a gifted try did France not score an embarrasing zero points, thats how crushed they were.
Now England being praised in Australia is obviously never going to happen, but for supporters of an australian team that created no try(gifts dont really count when tries are used for judging playing style) in perfect conditions to jump on an english team for not doing the same in a rainstorm is absolutely absurd.
on a more general note, I didnt think the game was that boring at all. kicking is part of the game, especially in such conditions, and the physical battle was intense. All games cant and shouldnt be the same.
I certainly wouldnt want to see several aspects of the game removed diminishing the game tactically, and making it an exercise in endless repetition of the perceived most entertaining part of the game (not that I am thinking of any game in particular...) to do that would be like when the americans felt they needed to "fix" soccer by making the goals bigger.
Anyway, this match was actually the first rugby match ever broadcast live in several european countries, including my homeland, and during the England V Denmark friendly football match, the commentators discussed what excelent entertainment this unknown sport had been, which they had watched earlier in the day on tv.
So if that was a boring game, the sport must have a great future in many new parts of europe.
England have been ranked one in the world for quite some time, and have beaten Australia the last several times scoring plenty of tries on each occassion.
Now theyre boring, because they win a semi without scoring a try, but look at the match. France did not create their try, it was gifted them by an english mistake, and incredibly, that remained their only score.They couldnt even get close enough to the english line to score on a penalty, while england came as close to a try as you can get
Yes england scored on the penalties that an ever more desperat France gave them, what were they supposed to do? only for a gifted try did France not score an embarrasing zero points, thats how crushed they were.
Now England being praised in Australia is obviously never going to happen, but for supporters of an australian team that created no try(gifts dont really count when tries are used for judging playing style) in perfect conditions to jump on an english team for not doing the same in a rainstorm is absolutely absurd.
Oh please. So it rained. That's your excuse. Boo hoo. The rain was no worse than the NRL Grand Final played at the same venue 7 weeks earlier at which four tries were scored. This is not Pommie bashing. The lack of tries was noted for all teams.
well what a terrible day. Aussie's lost in what was a great game though. England relied solely on Johnny Wilkinson which really started to piss me off, the whole game he was there to create panic for the Wallabies. If england did have him they would be no where, i really do hate Wilkinson for being to damn good and winning the cup for england.
