NARSEE MONJEE INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

STUDIES

FRENCH PROJECT

SUBMITTED BY,
PRASHUK JAIN,
2ND YEAR STUDENT,
BALLB (HONS),
81011219032.

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………….3

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Football……………………………………………………………..………..4

Pétanque……………………………………………………….…………….7

Judo…………………………………………………………...………….…9

cycling……………………………………………………………………….10

motorsport…………………………………………………………………..11

Introduction

Sports are an intricate part of the French lifestyle. Though many people imagine the French to
be in a perpetual state of wine-drinking and baguette-eating, the more interesting truth is that
French people are very active. In fact, it is more common to find a French person who
practices several sports, than one who doesn’t practice any.

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The French are also very proud of their teams and very nationalistic when it comes to sports.
A match will unite or divide the country in a way that few other things are capable of doing.
As such, it is impossible to truly understand French culture without understanding their
relationships to sports.

Football

Association football is the most popular sports in France, with 1,993,270 licensed players in
the leagues. The sport was imported from England at the end of the 19th century, under the
name of association football. In its early days, the sport gained followers mainly in the Paris
area and the Northern part of the country - Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Normandy were the first
teams that were created outside Paris. In southern France, football's competitor, rugby

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football, was more favoured at the time. Established in 1919 from competing organizations,
the Fédération française de football consists of 18,000 teams.

History of football

Football first started to become popular in France at the turn of the 20th century (1897). In
1904 the French National Football team was created and the first match they played was
against Belgium, later that year, with a 3-3 draw as the result. The French's success at an
international level led to the creation of the French Football Federation in 1919. By 1920 the
French Football Federation took over control of the French Cup. Currently, the FFF governs
all of French football as well as selecting the players for the national team. In 1917 the
French Cup was founded by Charles Simon Challenge. 48 teams competed in it, with the
champion being Olympic Pantin.

France competed in the first World Cup which was played in Uruguay in 1930. The first
World Cup goal for the French was scored by Lucien Laurent against Mexico on July 13th
1930, which occurred in the 19th minute of the first half. The French beat Mexico 4-1,
however they lost their following two matches against Argentina, then Chile. France held its
first World Cup in 1938, with its national team making it to the quarterfinals.

In the 1958 World Cup, the French National Team finished third, while losing to Pele and
Brazil (who would go on to win the world cup) in the semifinals. In this World Cup, Just
Fontaine set a World Cup record for the most goals scored in a World Tournament which
stood until 2009. The French National team didn't perform well, following their third-place
finish, until 1998 in which they won the World Cup held in France. France continued its
success from this point, when Roger Lemerrre led them to a second European title in 2000. It
was a very close game, and just as it seemed France was beaten, Sylvian Wiltore settled the
score. 13 minutes into extra time David Trezeguet sealed the deal and the French began

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UEFA EURO 2000 Champions. Following that, the French also won FIFA Confederations
Cup titles in 2001 and 2003.

At the next World Cup in Japan/South Korea, they were knocked out at the first stage. They
returned to qualify for UEFA EURO 2004, however they lost in the quarter finals to the
eventual champions, Greece. AS Monaco FC surprisingly made themselves candidates for
the UEFA Champions League, beating Chelsea FC and Real Madrid CF and then eventually
losing to FC Porto.

Lilian Thuram, Claude Makélélé and Zidane returned from international retirement and ended
up leading Raymond Domenech's team to the 2006 World Cup Final against Italy. Captain
Zidane scored first, securing himself as the fourth player to ever score in two World Cup
finals, however Marco Materazzi tied the game. France lost due to penalty kicks secured by
Azzurri, and they wouldn't get past the group stage until UEFA EURO 2012. This was when
Lauren Blanc led the team to the quarter finals, before falling to Spain.

With the FFF's creation of the Ligue One in 1932, the French became one of the first
European countries to create a professional football league. Olympique Lillois were the first
champions in 1932, however the teams to dominate Ligue One in the time period of 1955-83
were Stade de Reims (six titles), FC Nantes (six titles) and AS Saint Etienne (ten titles).

Marseille, established in 1897 is one of the most successful football clubs in French football
history. They have won eight Ligue One Titles and ten French Cup titles. They went on to
win the Champions League title in 1993 and are the only French team to do so. In the 1980s
and 90s they dominated Ligue One, winning back-to-back titles from 1988-1992.

Recent trend in Football in France

France is also one of only ten teams to have won the UEFA European Championship (1984
and 2000). They also finished as runners-up when they hosted the tournament in 2016. France
was also the 1984 Olympic Champion and the 1998 and 2018 FIFA World Cup winner,
hosting the 1998 tournament. They finished as World Cup runners-up in 2006.

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Ligue 1 is the French professional league for association football clubs. It is the country's
primary football competition and serves as the top division of the French football league
system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with
Ligue . The most successful club in the French first division history is AS Saint-Étienne with
10 championships (last one in 1981), followed by Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint-
Germain with 9 titles each and FC Nantes with 8 titles. As of 2020, the current champions are
Paris Saint-Germain.

The Coupe de France is the premier knock-out cup competition in French football. The
Coupe de la Ligue is the second major cup competition in France. The Trophée des
Champions is played each July as a one-off match between the Coupe de France winners and
the Ligue 1 champions.

Pétanque

Pétanque is a sport that falls into the category of boules sports. In pétanque the objective is to
score points by having boules closer to the target than the opponent after all boules have been
thrown. This is achieved by throwing or rolling boules closer to the small target ball,
officially called a jack but known colloquially as a cochonnet, or by hitting the opponents'

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boules away from the target, while standing inside a circle with both feet on the ground. The
game is normally and best played on hard dirt or gravel. It can be played in public areas in
parks or in dedicated facilities called boulodromes. The current form of the game originated
in 1907 or 1910 in La Ciotat, in Provence, France.

History of Pétanque

In France in the second half of the 19th century a form of boules known as jeu provençal was
extremely popular. In this form of the game players rolled their boules or ran three steps
before throwing a boule. Pétanque originally developed as an offshoot or variant of jeu
provençal in 1910, in what is now called the Jules Lenoir Boulodrome in the town of La
Ciotat near Marseilles. A former jeu provençal player named Jules Lenoir was afflicted by
rheumatism so severe that he could no longer run before throwing a boule. In fact, he could
barely stand. A good friend named Ernest Pitiot was a local café owner. In order to
accommodate his friend Lenoir, Pitiot developed a variant form of the game in which the
length of the pitch or field was reduced by roughly half, and a player, instead of running to
throw a boule, stood, stationary, in a circle. They called the game pieds tanqués, "feet
planted" (on the ground), a name that eventually evolved into the game's current name,
pétanque.

The first pétanque tournament was organized by Ernest Pitiot, along with his brother Joseph
Pitiot, in 1910 in La Ciotat. After that the game spread quickly and soon became the most
popular form of boules in France. Before the mid-1800s, European boules games were played
with solid wooden balls, usually made from boxwood root, a very hard wood. The late 1800s
saw the introduction of cheap mass-manufactured nails, and wooden boules gradually began
to be covered with nails, producing boules cloutées ("nailed boules"). After World War I,
cannonball manufacturing technology was adapted to allow the manufacture of hollow, all-
metal boules. The first all-metal boule, la Boule Intégrale, was introduced in the mid-1920s
by Paul Courtieu. The Intégrale was cast in a single piece from a bronze-aluminum alloy.
Shortly thereafter Jean Blanc invented a process of manufacturing steel boules by stamping
two steel blanks into hemispheres and then welding the two hemispheres together to create a
boule. With this technological advance, hollow all-metal balls rapidly became the norm.

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National and international competitions

There are a number of important world championship tournaments. The FIPJP world
championships take place every two years. Men's championships are held in even-numbered
years, while Women's and Youth championships are held in odd-numbered years. Perhaps the
best-known international championship is the Mondial la Marseillaise à Pétanque, which
takes place every year in Marseille, France, with more than 10,000 participants and more than
150,000 spectators.

The largest annual tournament in the United States is the Petanque Amelia Island Open
(formerly the Petanque America Open), held in each year in November at Amelia Island,
Florida. La British Open is a major Pétanque tournament held in the North of England, in the
United Kingdom. So far, this attracts players from across the UK and Europe. Pétanque is not
currently an Olympic sport, although the Confédération Mondiale des Sports de Boules—
which was created in 1985 by several international boules organizations specifically for this
purpose—has been lobbying the Olympic committee since 1985 to make it part of the
summer Olympics.

JUDO
Judo in France has reached the level where it can produce an Olympic champion. Immensely
popular in France, the Judo population there is approximately 800,000, as compared to
Japan's approximately 200,000. Judo is a required course in some public primary schools, and

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it's not uncommon to see women engaging in Keiko. France met Judo in 1935, the year when
Mikinosuke Kawaishi, knows as the "father of French Judo", first visited France. Kawaishi
proposed a method for teaching Judo to foreigners (non-Japanese), and he founded the Japan-
France Judo Club. Although he returned to Japan during World War II, he came to France
again after the war and set the stage for France's Judo boom which began in the 1950's.

HISTORY OF JUDO IN FRANCE

Introduced before the war, judo really made its appearance in France in the 30s, but it was
under the impulse of a Japanese master, KAWAISHI, arrived in Paris in 1935, and under the
leadership of Paul BONET-MAURY, President and founder of the French Judo Federation in
December 1946, that the sport took off. A few years earlier, on April 20, 1939, Maurice
COTTEREAU became the first French black belt, awarded by Professor KAWAISHI, while
in 1943, Jean de HERDT won the first national championship.

In the 1960s, as the sports movement became more and more important, France organized its
first World Championship (1961), which saw the victory of a certain Anton GEESINK
(NED) and judo was included in the program of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, the French
judoka already shone at the European level.

In 1972 they obtained their first Olympic medals with Jean-Jacques MOUNIER (light weight,
3rd), Jean-Paul COCHE (middle weight, 3rd) and Jean-Claude BRONDANI (open category,
3rd). Two years later, in 1975 in Vienna (Austria), Jean-Luc ROUGE won the first world title
for his country; today he is the President of the French Judo Federation and the General
Secretary of the IJF.

CYCLING

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France hosts "the world's biggest annual snaking event" called the Tour de France a cycling
race, which takes place each July and lasts for three weeks. It is one of the three Grand Tours,
which are the most prestigious stage races in road cycling. The Tour has been won 36 times
by French cyclists in its 110-year history. Cycling is very popular in France, evident from the
fact that the race of Tour de France attracts more than 12 million people who travel to witness
the race first hand. The Tour de France also attracts a television audience of 3.5 billion people
worldwide. In addition, the north of France hosts the one-day race Paris–Roubaix, known as
one of the cobbled classics famous for the use of cobblestones or setts as challenging terrain,
and as one of the five "Monuments" which along with the road racing World Championship
are the most important one-day classic cycle races. Other high-profile races which are
included as part of the top-level UCI World Tour circuit include the stage races Paris–Nice
and the Critérium du Dauphiné (often used as a warm-up race for riders competing in the
Tour de France), and the one-day race GP Ouest-France.

MOTORSPORTS

Motorsports are very popular in France, especially auto racing and motorcycle racing.
Formula One has a strong connection with and long history in France, having roots in

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European Grand Prix motor racing, which traces its birth to the 1906 French Grand Prix.
Many French circuits have been used since the foundation of the Formula One
Championships: Reims-Gueux (1950–1966), Rouen-Les-Essarts (1952–1958), Circuit
Charade (1965–1972), Bugatti Circuit (1967), Circuit Paul Ricard (1971–), Dijon-Prenois
(1974–1984), and Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours (1991–2008). France is home of Formula
One World's Constructors' Champions Matra (1969) and Renault (2005 and 2006), and
Formula One World Drivers' Champion Alain Prost (1985, 1986, 1989, and 1993). The most
recent French Formula One race winner is Pierre Gasly, having won the 2020 Italian Grand
Prix while racing for Scuderia AlphaTauri.

France is also home to the most Champions in Formula Two history with Jean-Pierre Beltoise
(1968), Johnny Servoz-Gavin (1969), Jean-Pierre Jarier (1973), Patrick Depailler (1974),
Jacques Laffite (1975), Jean-Pierre Jabouille (1976), and René Arnoux (1977). French
constructors have also been successful with Matra winning the Championships in 1967, 1968,
and 1969, Automobiles Martini in 1975 and 1977, and Renault in 1976 and 1977. France
produced five champions in the International Formula 3000 championship, the successor to
the European F2 series: Jean Alesi (1989), Érik Comas (1990), Olivier Panis (1993), Jean-
Christophe Boullion (1994) and Sébastien Bourdais (2002), tying with Italy as the most
successful nation in the formula. Romain Grosjean won the GP2 Asia Series in 2008 and
2011 and the main GP2 Series in 2011, whilst Pierre Gasly won the GP2 title in the series'
final season in 2016.

Touring car racing, although less popular in France than Formula One, has a strong
following, especially with four time World Touring Car Championship Drivers' Champion
Yvan Muller (2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013). In Sports car racing, France is home to the 24
Hours of Le Mans the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since
1923. Also, French auto racing team Hexis Racing is the current FIA GT1 World Team
Champion.

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Rallying is very popular in France, with two World Rally Championship rallies being held
there: Tour de Corse (1973–2008) and Rallye d'Alsace (2010-today).

French drivers and manufacturers have been very successful in the World Rally
Championship, especially since 2000, winning 14 championships in each competition.
Champions include Didier Auriol (1994), Sébastien Loeb (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,
2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, an all-time record) and Sébastien Ogier (2013, 2014, 2015,
2016,2017 and 2018) for the drivers, and Alpine (1973), Peugeot (1985, 1986, 2000, 2001,
and 2002), and Citroën (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012) for the
manufacturers.

France holds an annual ice racing championship at the end of each year, called the Andros
Trophy.

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"Tour De France 2019: Everything you need to know". BBC. 6 July 2019. Retrieved 15 July
2019.

"Statistiques – Données détaillées 2011". Sports.gouv.fr. Retrieved 1 November 2011.

"31,5% of Market Share, the success of rugby on France 2". Sportune.fr. Retrieved 12
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