The Rugby World Cup is about to begin, and all eyes are on Les Bleus. "The media buzz has been building for a month now," said French captain Antoine Dupont on Sunday, September 3, five days before his team kicks off against the All Blacks on Friday (9:15 pm, Paris time). Greeted by 5,000 enthusiastic supporters upon arrival at their base camp in the western Paris suburb of Rueil-Malmaison where they will stay for the duration of the World Cup, the French team could sense it. It also became apparent over the weekend amid a controversy involving one of their own: Bastien Chalureau.
The Montpellier lock prepared for the World Cup with Les Bleus before being one of the nine players not retained in the 33-man squad selected for the competition. But due to clubmate Paul Willemse's injury, the 31-year-old was recalled last Friday. Over the weekend, the memory of his conviction in November 2020 for racially motivated violence (which he has appealed) resurfaced in the daily lives of the French team, amplified by the World Cup's spotlight.
The controversy was sparked by a message on X (formerly Twitter) from Boucherie Ovalie, a humorous rugby-focused collective that has been criticizing Chalureau since his 2022 debut for the French national team. The player, one of the team's newest faces, now has six caps to his name. Upon the announcement of his inclusion in the squad preparing for the World Cup on Friday, the account reminded followers of his conviction and highlighted his interactions on Instagram with a far-right rapper.
This tweet seemed to have brought the subject into the media spotlight. By Saturday, two MPs from left-wing party La France Insoumise, François Piquemal and Thomas Portes, had reacted to the message and expressed their discontent. On Monday, they published an open letter to Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, in which they called for "serious consideration to be given to deselecting Bastien Chalureau."
On Sunday evening, the minister issued a press release in which she stated that she was satisfied "that the player, who had appealed against his conviction in the first instance, maintains his version of events and still formally denies having made any racist remarks." Florian Grill, president of the French Rugby Federation, had taken the same line earlier in the day, underlining the differences he saw with the case of Mohamed Haouas, who was recently dropped from the French team following his conviction for domestic violence: "In the case of Mohamed Haouas, there is a definitive and confirmed conviction, since he has not appealed. In that instance, our position was also very firm. In Bastien Chalureau's case, he denies racism and is appealing. Therefore, we are allowing the legal process to take its course."
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