Drops of water bead on the blue, white and red banners encircling the Rugby Village, Place de la Concorde, in Paris. The few French people hanging around there this Friday, September 22, drowned in a bath of foreign tourists, have not digested the news of Antoine Dupont’s injury the evening before. “It’s annoying, there’s no other word,” says Nelson, 50, Stade Toulouse sweatshirt on his back. “Dupont held back his tears yesterday (Thursday), we saw it, it was hard,” added Fabienne, his wife, alongside him, tricolor cap on her head to protect herself from the rain.
