When the French rugby sevens won gold with their national hero Antoine Dupont blasting through Fiji’s defence, and tens of thousands of fans in berets and cockerel outfits at the Stade de France began chanting Edith Piaf’s cabaret classic, Non, je ne regrette rien, it was clear that France was on a roll like never before.
No one had expected the sheer scale of togetherness and raw patriotic emotion in France in the first weekend of the Olympics. A nation which had for months been overwhelmingly sceptical about hosting the world’s biggest sporting event, got on board with the Games with such fervour that even “Toto” Dupont himself was surprised.
