ABSTRACT
Football was in fact a fairly late arrival in France, where historically certain sports have developed a very specific cultural resonance. While traditional pursuits such as hunting, shooting and fishing still maintain their age-old appeal, particularly in rural areas, more recently introduced games now dominate French leisure, both as participant activities and as televised spectacles. The historic French victory in the football World Cup on 12 July 1998 was achieved in the magnificent setting of the new, purpose-built ’Stade de France’ at Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs. The cross-party consensus behind this rhetoric of sporting and social integration may also usefully be contrasted with the racism which continues to be associated with some French football clubs, and most obviously Paris Saint-Germain, based in the national stadium at the Parc des Princes. Modern games play a significant role in the construction and reconstruction of a variety of personal and collective identities.
