Marc Cécillon: The French rugby legend who murdered his wife

The night of August 7 to 8, 2004, Saint-Savin, France. Marc Cécillon, the retired former captain of the French national rugby team, and his wife Chantal are among the guests at the home of the manager of the Pont-de-Chéruy rugby club to honor the club's juniors.

It is Chantal who arrives first. Her husband is still with his friends and spends his afternoon drinking heavily.

Since retiring from the heights of international rugby in 1999, Cécillon has been nothing but a shadow of his former self. Having failed in his retraining as a coach, the once-star player sank into alcoholism and depression.

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At this point, Cécillon has been unmanageable and violent for years. His wife can't stand him anymore and wants to file for divorce. He's unfaithful but terribly jealous, and does not want to let her go.

Showing up to the party too inebriated to be in any sort of company, he was excluded from the evening. But, under the pretext of saying goodbye to the guests, he returns to his wife and asks her to join him in heading home.

She refuses. Mad with rage, the former captain then took out his weapon, a 357 Magnum hidden under his shirt and shot his wife four times at point-blank range.

It will take the intervention of around ten people to calm and disarm the murderer. The same evening, his blood alcohol level was measured at 2.65 grams. He will be sentenced on December 3, 2008 to 14 years in prison.

In August 2023, Ludovic Ninet, a former journalist turned writer, published the book "The Cécillon Affair. Chantal, a story of a Feminicide", paying tribute to a woman murdered by her husband, one of the most shocking moments in French rugby.

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Before becoming this broken man, Marc Cécillon was an icon. Renowned by his peers, the player was a legend of the Bourgoin-Jallieu club.

At just 19 years old, he joined the Bourgoin senior team after studying at Saint-Savin. Large and powerful, he is versatile and capable of playing a number of positions.

In 1988, he was called up for the France team for the first time, aged 30. With an impressive size (1.92 m, 112 kg), he quickly established himself as a key part of the Blues squad.

For seven years, until 1995, Cécillon enjoyed the heyday of the XV of France, counting 46 selections including five captaincies.

In 1997, when he was 38, he led Bourgoin to the final of the French championship, the Coupe de France and won the European Challenge.

In 1999, the CSBJ once again reached the semi-finals of the French championship in 1999 and, at almost 40 years old, Cécillon continued to be an important player in the squad. This will, however, be the player's last match with the Garnets.

Subsequently, Marc Cécillon became player-coach of the US Beaurepaire club in the fourth division. However, it did little to inspire him, and he soon found himself sinking into alcohol and depression.

On July 7, 2011, the former rugby player was released from prison, benefiting from conditional release for good behavior after seven years of imprisonment. A small price to pay for ending someone's life, many would say.

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