Rugby League in France

Exhibition match held in Paris

© Image courtesy of the Rugby Football League and The University of Huddersfield Archive and Special Collections.

Front cover of 'Club' a monthly sports' magazine

On 31 December 1933 the Australians and an England side played an exhibition match in Paris. In April 1934 the Ligue Francaise de Rugby a Treize was founded and had 225 clubs by 1938-39. The wartime collaborationist Vichy government which had sympathies with rugby union banned the playing of league and disposed of the Ligue's assets in 1941. Reformed after the end of the war, French rugby a treize had a golden age in the 1950s. The Catalans Dragons based in Perpignan play in today's Super League.