France Rugby Shirt 1911–1914

The French team joined the tournament in 1910 and won its first match against Scotland in 1911. This would be the only victory in the tournament for a French XV before the war.

It should be noted that during the 1914 tournament, the Scots refused to play France, as the last match between the two teams had ended in turmoil. French spectators had tried to assault the English referee at the end of the match.

This inspired these patriotic words from Henri Desgranges, the famous writer for the newspaper L'Auto:

"It is in front of such spectacles that we feel proud to be French, and you would have been out of place yesterday, trying to make the public understand that a referee of such incompetence or bad faith should not be given the advantage of an act of violence and that we should simply ask England not to send us any more of this ilk."