In the 2018 Challenge Cup final, history was made. For the first time in the competition’s history, a team from outside the U.K. won the famous old trophy.

The winning team was the Catalans Dragons, a second attempt at launching a professional Super League side in France, after the experiment ended in swift disappointment in 1997 with Paris Saint-Germain the first time around at the dawn of Super League. By 2018, Catalans had well and truly established themselves in the top-flight of British rugby league, having entered the league in 2007, Catalans have frequently competed in the play-offs, and even claimed the League Leaders’ Shield as well back in 2021.

However, the history of rugby league in France is more than just their most famous team. Moreover, it isn’t a sport that suddenly sprang up in France upon the Dragons, or even Paris’ foundation in the English game. The code of rugby league can trace its French roots back almost one hundred years, and at one time, it threatened to become the more popular code in France. In 1939, they even beat England and Wales to claim their first European Championship, the sport was booming in the South of France, until reality, and war, came crashing into its life.

In September of 1939 (the same year France claimed their maiden European Championship), Nazi Germany launched the invasion of Poland, a move which lead the U.K. to declare war, and thus, The Second World War broke out. Seven months later, the same Nazi war machine whose tentacles were extending over mainland Europe, reached France. Paris fell into German hands, and the country was divided into Occupied France, in the North, and the Nazi puppet-state Vichy France in the South.

This German invasion of France was crippling for the entire country, of course, but it proved to be especially paralysing to the sport of rugby league (or Rugby XIII, as the French call it). The stronghold of Vichy France ran through the league-playing heartlands of the country, and seeing the sport as a link to the previous socialist government, and their greater enemy, the United Kingdom, this new regim banned the playing of rugby league in Vichy France. Funds, grounds, and equipment of rugby league clubs were confiscated by the state and given to their union playing counterparts, and the players were given the choice to switch to union, or quit altogether.

According to the 1999 book The Forbidden Game, by Mike Rylance, which covers this topic in-depth, the banning of rugby league was: “decided in 1941, by the Director of Sports [Colonel Pascot], who was himself a rugby union player, and who was convinced that the disappearance of rugby league would favor the development of rugby [union]”.

Whatever the reason for banning rugby league, it completely decimated the sport in France. By the time the end of the war was in sight, and the French RL federation was re-established in 1944, there were no clubs, no players, and no money in the sport. The Vichy government effectively killed the game of rugby league in France for generations.

In the aftermath of the devastation left behind by the Second World War, rugby league slowly returned to France, although its progress was stuttering, and held back by the implications of its banning in 1941. In 1947, an agreement was reached between Ligue Française de rugby à thirteen (the French RL administration), the French Republic, and the French rugby union for the return of the game in two parts. There would be Federation française de jeux à thirteen for the amateur game, and Ligue de rugby à XIII for the semi-professionals. They were also banned from using the word ‘rugby’ to describe the sport, instead using Jeu à Treize ( Game of Thirteen), this rule would stand until July of 1991, half a century after the game was banned in Vichy France.

Despite the odds, France went on to be somewhat of a powerhouse on the international stage. The first-ever Rugby League World Cup was held there in 1954, and France even reached the final, narrowly missing out on what would have been a remarkable world title given the circumstances, falling 12-16 to Great Britain in the final. They would be runners-up in the World Cup once more in 1968, this time falling short against Australia in the final.

As time wore on, however, the gulf between the professional teams in the UK and Australia grew ever wider when compared to the only semi-professional nature of French RL. As testament to this, during the inaugural Super League season, the debuting Paris Saint-Germain team finished 11th out of 12 teams with a team drawn from the French leagues, with these players turning out for Paris and their part-time clubs in the French leagues. The project was doomed to failure after only two seasons.

While this was going on, the chairman of the French rugby league federation launched XIII Actif, to put pressure on the French government for the restitution of stolen assets during the sport’s outlawing. The French Minister for Sport commissioned an enquiry which found in Actif’s favour, but in a final cruel punch to the gut of French rugby league, The French Courts then ruled that only the French Rugby League Federation could take action under its own name, something which was, of course, impossible, due to its forced disbanding in 1941. Rugby league was, once again, left out in the cold.

Fortunes would improve as the new millenium dawned. French clubs have entered the Challenge Cup regularly since the early 2000s, with Toulouse Olympique XIII reaching a semi-final in 2005, sides from the French top flight such as Limoux Grizzlies, Pia, and AS Carcassonne taking part sporadically.

But it is that summer’s day in 2018 which serves as the current pinnacle for French rugby league, as the sport continues its long recovery from its dissolution in 1941. Catalans continue to be the jewel in the crown of French RL, but with Toulouse in the Championship, and whispers of more French clubs eager to join the British system, we might be witnessing a new boom period for the ‘Game of Thirteen’ in France.

Whatever the future holds for the sport we all love in France, the country is undoubtedly still suffering the effects of what was forced onto it eighty years ago, which leaves its current successes to be tinged with a sense of melancholy as RL lovers in La République as they are left to ponder what might have been if the growth of the code hadn’t been cut down as it was reaching new heights. Their future could be bright, but their past is a series of what if’s that will never be answered, and the tragedy of potential left unfulfilled.

Written by Nathan Major-Kershaw (site editor & Hull KR fan)

Enjoyed this article? Check out the book which inspired it: The Forbidden Game by Mike Rylance