2023-09-30 17:00:09
Aristide Barraud, 34, is a former rugby player. Fly half, trained at RC Massy, he notably played at the Stade français and in the French under-20 team. Wounded by bullet during the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris, he was forced to end his career at the age of 26. He has since devoted himself to writing, art and photography.
“I have heard that to get to school, children walk a long time. Twenty kilometers out, 20 kilometers back. Elsewhere in the world, guys fly off on private jets. Meet on another continent, business lunch then return flight.
In Massy (Essonne), rugby players go to training in RER B. And it takes time. A time that stretches along the tracks and stations. Long as a trip packed tightly together during rush hour and in the middle of a heatwave. Long as the days of training in a week without a match, in the middle of the World Cup.
The RER B line leaves from 93 (Seine-Saint-Denis), in the north, and arrives at 91 (Essonne), in the south. It irrigates Paris with suburbanites and French rugby with great players. Like Sekou Macalou or Yacouba Camara before him, Cameron Woki arrived in Massy like this, by the RER B. Exit at the Les Baconnets stop then cross the large Massy-Antony complex to the grounds. He came from Bobigny, his childhood town, his first club, where he started following his big brother. Very quickly, rugby took up all the space, and also prevented him from getting his hands into mischief, at the risk of being pinched very hard.
“Naturally above the rest”
I remember his arrival in Massy, already tall, lean and dilettante in appearance. He was 14 and things were getting serious. He had just joined the Pôle Espoir at Lakanal high school, ten years after me.
Located on the heights of Sceaux (Hauts-de-Seine), a stone’s throw from the park, exit at the Bourg-la-Reine stop. Then walk for a good quarter of an hour, between the tall trees and the bourgeois homes. In each generation, after drastic selections to narrow down the numbers, around ten players are selected. Training every day after school. We leave the boarding rooms on Friday to join the clubs. In my time, a whole group of us went down to the RER B before splitting up. Towards the North, Wesley Fofana joined the PUC [Paris Université Club] – (exit at Cité universitaire).
Towards the South, all the others, the guys from Massy, including Mathieu Bastareaud or Mike Tadjer (Portugal hooker for this World Cup). We didn’t have a ticket. We went over the turnstile, the chase with the controllers warmed us up before training.
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