The Split: Rugby League and Rugby Union

The tensions over professionalism culminated in French rugby's great schism of 1934. Twelve clubs, primarily from the Southwest, broke away to form the Ligue Française de Rugby à XIII (Rugby League), aligning themselves with the professional game that had split from Rugby Union in England decades earlier. This division traumatized French rugby, creating bitter rivalries between neighboring towns that chose different codes and splitting families where brothers might play for union or league teams.

Rugby League initially flourished, particularly in towns like Carcassonne, Albi, and Villeneuve-sur-Lot. The game's professional status attracted talented players who needed to earn livings from their athletic abilities. The French national rugby league team achieved remarkable success, winning European championships and competing strongly against Australia and Great Britain. However, the Vichy government's decision to ban rugby league in 1940, confiscating its assets and giving them to rugby union, delivered a blow from which the thirteen-man code never fully recovered in France.

The persecution of rugby league under Vichy revealed the political dimensions of sporting choices. Rugby union's establishment connections and its alignment with traditional, conservative values made it acceptable to the collaborationist regime. Rugby league's working-class associations and professional status marked it as dangerous and corrupting. The ban's legacy poisoned relationships between the codes for generations, creating a divide that went beyond sporting preference to questions of class, politics, and regional loyalty.

Post-war, rugby union reclaimed its position as the Southwest's dominant winter sport, while rugby league survived in pockets, maintaining passionate followings in certain towns but never regaining its pre-war prominence. The two codes developed largely separately, with minimal crossover of players or administrators until recent decades. This division, unique in its bitterness compared to other rugby-playing nations, shaped the development of both games in France and contributed to rugby union's eventual acceptance of professionalism in 1995.