Gambass

Hundreds have disappeared. There was a PDF on the internet listing all of them, I will try to find it.

The last official figure from the french sports ministry in 2022 is 10,178 licenciés, including 5,941 from the Occitania region. Slighty down from pre-covid years. Offically reported figures have been all over the place for decades now, so it's complicated to judge how it's going on. In the early 90's, the federation was reporting more than 30,000 membres. Was it all BS ? I don't know.

In an ideal world : Step 1 ) Make the best of what you have for now, raise every standards as much as possible (some clubs can't do much more than they currently do, others have a lot of room to improve). Step 2 ) You now have a better product than can incite mid-size towns from non-heartland to join (think Salon, Roanne and obviously Atlantisman's Carpentras !). These teams remplace the smallest village ones and the reserves teams, bringing new money and new fans. You have now a real semi-pro league with minimum standards across every teams, the best of the bunch (Carcassonne, possibly Albi), being not far from full time professionalism. Step 3) Elevate the thing to RFL Championship status with cross-Manche play off, and a direct access to Super League (whatever be the situation of P/R to SL by then) which then make it possible for larger projects from much bigger towns (Lyon, Bordeaux, a non basket case Avignon) to be put forward with an eye to Super League (that it may or may not be achieved is beyond the point) Step 4) Enjoy a decent coherent package of french RL live on your TV !

There should be a movie about it sone day. How the sport was set up, how it grew, how it was killed off is is one the (true) best story you can write about sport.

Actually, they RT from my twitter acount ^^ They were 8,000 in the stands (Stade Pershing, Paris), and the pitch was frozen. The picture came from press reports that you cand find plenty here: (from 1933 up to the late 40's) http://gallica.bnf.fr/ https://www.retronews.fr/ (much more user friendly) There is a load of fantastic stuff to dig out. For exemple: Galia proposing allready in 1934 to hold a World Cup, a "group of italians" asking to hold a game in Roma, etc.