“Racism doesn’t exist in rugby? It’s not true”… A victim of the attack committed by international Bastien Chalureau testifies

Yannick Larguet recounted, Wednesday in L’Equipe, the attack committed by the second line of the XV of France against him in particular.

Yannick Larguet has broken his silence. A week after the appeal trial of rugby player Bastien Chalureau, against whom an eight-month suspended prison sentence was requested for “racist aggression” following a brawl in 2020, one of his two victims testified for the first time in The Team, Wednesday November 22. “The blow hurt me but it hurts me a hundred times less than the insult”explained the former Colomiers and Agen player, aged 43.

He preferred to remain silent during the World Cup, because “supporting and preserving the French team was [sa] priority”. Even though the second international line, present in the Blues group for the World Cup which had provoked reactions to the announcement of his selection, has always refuted the racist nature of the attack. “Disappointed” by the version of events presented by Bastien Chalureau during the appeal trial and by “his way of trivializing certain points”Yannick Larguet shared, in the sports daily, his version of the evening of January 31, 2020, in Toulouse.

“When I hear that this story is nothing other than a night fight between drunk rugby players… That’s not the truth. When you get hit from behind when entering a parking lot, being called stupid, it’s not a fight. It’s the most extreme cowardice”insists the former rugby player, for whom it is indeed a “motivated aggression”. “At 40, being called stupid… I thought about my mother, my father, what I heard when I was younger, in Bourg-en-Bresse […] when I was crossing the field to go score: ‘Catch him, nigga'”, says the victim.

“At no time did he apologize”

Questioned by the Montpellier player, Yannick Larguet claims to have never bothered him during the evening, nor even crossed paths, but saw in him “a danger to society with his 2.02 meters and 130 kg at the time”. “At no time did he apologize”he regrets despite their exchanges the day after the events, at the initiative of Didier Lacroix, president of Stade Toulouse where the attacker played at the time before being fired.

“I felt alone”regrets Yannick Larguet, “shocked” by the silence of the media and authorities. This father of three children proclaims it: “We absolutely must flee and move away from this truth which is not a truth: racism does not exist in rugby. It is not true.”

The court of appeal will deliver its decision on January 16.