The temptation is to throw arms skywards, to pronounce the death of a once-mighty rugby nation, but the truth is this feels all too familiar. Only France among rugby’s top nations are capable of this sort of implosion, just as they can on occasion come back from the dead.
France are no more dead than they ever have been. They will shrug and move on to Paris to welcome Scotland but they are no closer either to giving us a sense of who they are. We thought there might be grounds for optimism in their recent outings, intermingling some accomplished rugby with that infuriating failure to remember what it is all meant to be in aid of – the simple directive to win.
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