Rugby World Cup Opening Ceremony: The Good Taste of Clichés

Friday, September 8th, the Rugby World Cup opened in Paris with a match that promised to be epic for all fans of the sport, pitting the French team of Les Bleus against the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand. The long-prepared opening ceremony at the Stade de France was presented as an ode to the France of yesteryear, so retro as to cause a few heartburns among progressives of all stripes. 

Here’s the rule of the game: before the whistle blows to mark the start of the competition, it’s customary at these major international events for the public and television viewers to be treated to a large-scale show to set the scene and exalt the host country. For the Rugby World Cup 2023, the organisers have taken the gamble—a daring one in these times—of paying tribute to eternal France by staging a France of the 1950s, exuding the scent of warm bread and proudly displaying the smiles of young girls dancing in the guinguettes. The twenty-minute show was directed by actor Jean Dujardin, dressed up as a baker for the occasion, who makes no secret of his passionate attachment to this simple, true, and deeply rooted France. 

That was all it took to trigger the ire of the left-wing censors. The left-wing newspaper Libération accused ceremony organisers of exalting a ‘rancid France’ (une France rance) that is both reactionary and racist. Some on X wondered whether the script had not been conceived by Éric Zemmour. 

Surely there was no shortage of clichés during this ceremony. Around Jean Dujardin and his loaves of bread gracefully swirled a prima ballerina from the Paris Opera who ended up in the arms of this toasty seducer to waltz a few steps. In the reconstructed square of a French village, celebrities crossed paths—Michelin-starred chefs, singers, photographers, and renowned pâtissiers—who weren’t afraid to raise a glass of wine in honour of France.

Truly an occasion to cry kitsch! 

And so what? Indeed the ceremony was soaked in kitsch, but we must be careful not to think ill of it. The idea is not to live in papier-mâché décor, but it’s nice to enjoy the charms of a France that makes you happy. The clichés are heart-warming and soul-satisfying because they evoke a lost world that existed not so long ago. Many French people still hold on to it like a forbidden delicacy, which they like to savour when the cameras of wokism aren’t focused on them. And many of them are proud of this sentimental tapestry, which also speaks to the hearts of so many foreigners around the world. 

The fury of the liberated left echoes the anger they felt a few days ago when the staff of the French national team unveiled the final line-up of les Bleus: in the video clip, too many whites; too many villages; too many families; too much terroir. There was no doubt that it all harked back to the darkest days of our history. No matter if the rugby team can boast of a certain amount of ‘diversity’: Romain N’Tamack is of Cameroonian origin; Gaël Fickou has a Senegalese father, and Wallisians Peato Mauvaka and Romain Taofifénua are from the Pacific region. But they are not part of the authorised diversity.

The world of rugby—which took to the stage Friday evening in front of an audience of 80,000, with a further 15 million who viewed from behind screens (often summed up in the press by the expression ‘the values of rugby’)—has the wind in its sails because, unlike Libération, it does not seek to teach lessons or to destroy. It celebrates a shared and happy identity, where men are men and women are women. It sings the virtues of pairing a glass of red wine with a slice of saucisson, all in a good-natured atmosphere where no outbursts or violence disrupt the party—as was sadly the case for the European Football Cup final a few months ago between Liverpool and Madrid at the same Stade de France. 

The most exceptional—and, we must admit, the most enjoyable—moment of the opening ceremony was not Jean Dujardin’s waltz. That delightful affair was eclipsed by President Emmanuel Macron’s ascent to the podium. As he mounted the platform to deliver his opening speech for the 2023 Cup, the President of the French Republic was battered by a storm of booing and whistling that echoed throughout the Stade de France. For long, long seconds, he struggled to launch his speech with the appropriate serenity. Emmanuel Macron had already been whistled at during the French Cup final in April. But at the time, the official editing of the images made the humiliation more discreet; it was only discovered by chance by scanning amateur videos on social networks. This time though, there was no censorship, and the images taken in the stadium and projected around the world made palpable the great moment of solitude of a president hated by his own people.

The newspaper Libération expressed incomprehension. How can this rugby-loving public, so stubbornly reactionary, whistle at Macron? To hear them tell it, Macron, who is preparing to put uniforms back in schools and who bans abayas, is also an infamous reactionary. 

These poor left-wing journalists have understood absolutely nothing: the France that is passionate about ‘the values of rugby’ is a France that does not want to die, and which has perfectly understood that Macron embodies to the highest degree the antithesis of everything that was being conveyed that evening by Dujardin and his merry band. The spectators at the Stade de France whistled at the man who, in every one of his acts, shows hatred for eternal France and holds a truly quizzical vision of his country, seeing it as a ‘start-up nation’ whose simple people and culture he scorns. Rugby fans have a reputation for being well-behaved. The fact that they revolt and whistle like this is proof of their cold anger at their leaders. 

Back to sport: the match ended in a fine victory for the French over the New Zealanders, 27-13. We hope to see this episode as a metaphor for a more intense battle being waged at another level, one that will one day see the triumph of beautiful clichés over hate-filled ugliness, at least for a few progressive journalists.