The second line of Montpellier Bastien Chalureau (31 years old, 6 selections) was integrated into the group of 33 on Friday after the injury of Paul Willemse. And that strongly displeases certain deputies of the La France Insoumise (LFI) group. The reason ? Chalureau was sentenced in November 2020 to a six-month suspended prison sentence and a ban on carrying a weapon for five years by the Toulouse Criminal Court for “acts of violence with the circumstance that these were committed due to race or ethnicity of the victim”.
Recall of facts. At the beginning of 2020, then at the Toulouse Stadium, he attacked two people in the middle of the street, including the former rugby player from Agen and Colomiers Yannick Larguet. Chalureau, who recognizes the acts of violence, has always denied the racist nature of the attack and appealed. While the investigation is still in progress, the deputy of La France insoumise (LFI) for Seine-Saint-Denis Thomas Portes, declared this Sunday on RMC. “There was a conviction for a fight at the end of a party, and it is not a trivial fight. He said racist words, two testimonies confirmed his remarks. He was given a suspended prison sentence. In the reasons for the conviction, it is said that this violence was committed because of ethnicity or race. We cannot accept today having a rugby player in the France team who has been convicted of racist acts. The first thing is that Fabien Galthié should not have called him. »
“The selection of [Bastien Chalureau] without a public apology is a public error for the XV of France”, also wrote on Saturday, on his X account (formerly Twitter) François Piquemal, deputy for Toulouse.
“With my colleague deputy François Piquemal, we will seize the Minister of Sports (Amélie Oudéa-Castera) on Monday to intervene and ask the French team not to select him, continues Thomas Portes on RMC . This racist violence is not trivial. We are a year and a half after the assassination of another rugby player, Federico Martín Aramburú, in the heart of Paris, by far-right activists because he had opposed a racist attack. There is a phenomenon that is growing in rugby, there are more and more racist events. Look at what is happening in the lower divisions… Sending a signal by saying that we can represent the France team, when we have been condemned for racist remarks, it is absolutely unacceptable.
“Bastien Chalureau recognizes the facts (the fight) but denies the racist remarks,” reacted Florian Grill, the president of the FFR, interviewed Sunday morning by RMC Sport. The strong man of French rugby recalls that the 31-year-old appealed after being given a six-month suspended prison sentence in November 2020 and continues: “I think that racist remarks are of course unacceptable if they were held but it is appropriate to let justice take its course.”
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