The French media have not held back after Les Bleus once again came unstuck against the Springboks.

On Saturday night, the hosts suffered a 37-12 defeat at the Stade de France that reopened the wounds of their 2023 World Cup quarter-final heartbreak.

“Despite leading on the scoreboard and enjoying a numerical advantage for most of the match, Fabien Galthié’s men crumbled in the final quarter of an hour and were ultimately swept aside by the reigning two-time world champions,” wrote Jérémy Fadat for Rugby Rama, under the headline “New Nightmare at the Stade de France”.

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He captured the emotional weight surrounding the fixture, calling it “the match of the year” – one France had to win to “heal the wound” of 2023. Instead, he said, the Springboks’ physical dominance again proved decisive.

“When you face the reigning two-time world champions, who have built their dominance on the physical challenge they impose on their opponents, the atmosphere suddenly becomes brutal. Bestial even. Violent.”

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In L’Équipe, Laurent Campistron was equally blunt in his piece headlined “The Slap”, admitting that France had been outclassed by a team that “always wins with the same recipe”.

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“Despite a red card shown to the Springboks just before half time, the match didn’t reveal a chasm between the teams, but it’s undeniable that in the end, it’s always the same team that wins,” Campistron wrote.

He praised South Africa’s “impressive ability to maintain constant pressure, a dominant scrum, and a knack for punishing the slightest mistake,” while lamenting that “the scoreline is harsh and doesn’t fully reflect the game – but the better team won.”

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Both publications agreed on one thing: France must use this humbling defeat as motivation to bridge the gap before the next World Cup in Australia.