‘A smoldering volcano:’ French soccer fans bring a quiet intensity to Boston’s World Cup scene

They came for the escargot, slow-cooked in garlic and parsley butter, and the bourbon splashed with lemon juice.

They arrived in crisp polo shirts, with designer bags, and puppies lounging in bassinettes.

Over sips of strawberry spritzers, they talked of past and future trips to the Louvre and the Côte d’Azur.

As for the World Cup match flickering on the large screen perched above the sidewalk tables of the Petit Robert Bistro? That was a mere afterthought to their main event: the haute cuisine and the artful recreation of a Parisian evening in Boston’s South End.

There is a discreet confidence that pervades the French fans pouring into Boston this week ahead of the team’s high-stakes clash with Norway in Foxborough.

For them, soccer is less a riotous celebration than a quiet, almost inevitable march toward victory. They arrived here fully expecting to win. Anything less than a trophy would be a disappointment. No need for the exuberant passion of the Brazilians, the rowdiness of the English or the contagious bravado of the Scots, who descended on Boston with bagpipes and kilts, drank bars dry, and left patriotic statues topped with cones.

Fans of Les Bleus, as they are known, are still turning out in droves in local French bistros and cafes to see these games.But they are making their presence known in more discreet ways.

“We are passionate about football, but we are not in your face, you know, jumping and dancing around,” said Loic Le Garrec, co-owner of the Petit Robert Bistro. “We already know we are champions.”

Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find outward displays of French soccer fervor on Boston’s streets. Aside from the occasional tourist clad in a blue jersey of their beloved star Kylian Mbappé, fans of Les Bleus are keeping a decidedly low profile. Even at local bistro watch parties, the crowds largely skip the traditional blue shirts and scarves. Walking about downtown, you’d never guess that the French national team has actually made Boston its home base, living and practicing here for the duration of the tournament.

But the French are renowned for their fiercely loyal fans, and many are quick to warn that their quiet reserve should not be mistaken for a lack of passion for “le beau jeu,” the beautiful game.

Indeed, if past World Cup tournaments are any indication, fans of the talent-rich French team — which has reached four of the last seven World Cup finals, and won two — know to make a massive racket once they win big.

When France won the 1998 World Cup, more than a millionecstatic fans poured into the streets and stormed the Champs-Élysées in central Paris — the greatest celebration the nation had seen since the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation in 1944. French flags appeared in windows all over the country and a giant image of French star Zinedine Zidane was projected on the Arc de Triomphe along with two words: “Zizou On T’aime” (Zizou, We Love You). Twenty years later, France’s victory at the 2018 World Cup ignited a similar wave of euphoria, with Paris police using tear gas to disperse the overwhelming crowds.

In Boston, the quiet current of French football fandom has been building into a wave in the weeks leading up to the match against Norway. Two weeks ago, hundreds of screaming fans in blue jerseys gathered outside the club’s hotel, the Four Seasons on Boylston Street, just to glimpse the team’s arrival. And at the FIFA store inside Faneuil Hall Marketplace, sales of France’s team jersey (priced at $140 each) have picked up in recent days and are now rivaling that of the top sellers, the US and Scotland, according to a store clerk.

“Now that the Scots are gone, France is Boston’s team,” declared Matt Kiessling, as he watched the tournament over a glass of French lager at the Petit Robert Bistro. “We’re giving them shelter. They’re eating, sleeping and practicing here.”

He added, “It’s more than a handshake. It’s a bonne bise [a warm kiss].”

There is also a deep sense of pride, among many of the estimated 50,000 French-speaking residents of Greater Boston, that Les Bleus is a truly diverse squad — a reflection, some maintain, of the country’s modern, cosmopolitan society. In 1998, the French team included several first-generation African immigrants that formed what was famously known as the “Black-Blanc-Beur team‚” or Black, white and Arab team. Today, most of France’s starting roster is of African descent. Star striker Mbappé was born in Cameroon and his mother is of Algerian descent.

Driven by that diasporic pride, the French Library in Boston’s Back Bay recently launched a five-week online course examining soccer as a global phenomenon (“un sport mondial”). The class dives into the game’s immense cultural importance across French-speaking societies.

“You have a really diverse mix of people from different countries getting behind the French team and celebrating in different ways,” said Barbara Bouquegneau, president and executive director of the French Library, which boasts the largest private collection of French books and periodicals in the U.S. “It’s a big rallying factor.”

On an evening this week, several dozen local Francophiles packed into Café Sauvage, a small cafe-restaurant on the Back Bay festooned with a collection of French soccer jerseys, to watch France trounce Iraq by a score of 3-0. The crowd erupted into chants of “Allez les Bleus!” after each goal, and broke into spontaneous sing-alongs of Vegedream’s “Ramenez la coupe à la maison” (“Bring the Cup Back Home”), a track that has served as the country’s unofficial soccer anthem since their 2018 World Cup victory.

“We are like a smoldering volcano,” said Anaïs Lambert, co-owner and general manager of Café Sauvage, which is broadcasting every French match and is touting itself as the “Home of Les Bleus” for the World Cup. “France is a football country. We want to win. We expect to win.”

Yet so confident are French fans of victory that many say they are pacing themselves — saving the champagne and watch parties for the tournament’s final rounds.

Cedric Morlot, who grew up in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France and now lives on the South Shore, said he might invite a few friends over for some beer and bread-and-cheese if France makes it to the semifinals. He doesn’t plan to watch the France-Norway game, which he called “not super interesting” in part because he expects his countrymen to win.

“I’m not saying the French fans like soccer less than the Scots or the Dutch or whatever, because the French can be very loud, but discretion is very important in our culture,” Morlot said. “There is not this organized thing. In French fashion, it’s more anarchist, more spontaneous.”

Reflecting on the fleeting euphoria of the Scottish fans and their kilted tomfoolery, Morlot displayed a certain French cynicism, shrugging off the viral social media phenomenon as “a bit pathetic.” For the French, he suggested, soccer is less a vehicle for joy than a discipline to be taken seriously.

“There were all these people chasing the Scottish, and for what? To have fun?” Morlot said, a bit ironically, since his two young children asked to see Boston’s cone-topped statues on their trip to a museum downtown.

Le Garrec has witnessed the French penchant for spontaneous euphoria firsthand.

He was in Paris for France’s historic 1998 World Cup victory, and by sheer coincidence, opened his bistro the day Les Bleus defeated Brazil in the 2006 quarterfinals. Leading up to the opening, he had assured South End neighborhood groups that his cafe would be a quiet, non-disruptive gathering place. But when France won, the champagne corks flew and more than 150 ecstatic fans spilled out onto the sidewalk and celebrated until 3 a.m.

“It was absolutely incredible, but I had to apologize to the neighbors,” Le Garrec said, laughing.

Two decades later, the French bistro remains primed again for soccer-fueled revelry. A World Cup tournament schedule hangs near the entrance, beside a giant inflatable eagle perched atop a soccer ball.

Inside, tucked beneath a barstool, sits a checkered ball waiting for its moment.

Nearly a dozen of the cafe’s staff members — from the line cooks to the servers — hail from France.

When the dining room finally empties late at night, they’ve been known to slide the ball out and transform the sidewalk outside into a miniature pitch.