Opinion | Postcard from Paris: Lord have Bercy – Canada, foreign journos crowded out at the basketball

It’s probably usually a 50-50 fight when a hero takes on a villain, but when France hosted Canada in the men’s basketball quarter-final at the Bercy Arena on Tuesday night, it certainly did not look like an equal battle.

For the 12 visiting “villains” that shared the court, it must have felt like five versus 11,005 at any given moment, assuming the home fans did not fill more of the 12,800 available seats.

The roaring cheer began 30 minutes before the early evening tip-off and the spectators were cheering for anything French.

From the big television screen showing Nicolas Batum stretching, to former player Richard Dacoury performing “the three blows” or les trois coups, an age-old practice borrowed from French performance stages, the home fans never stopped.

There were cheers, and, of course, there were boos, even when the Canadians were merely running onto the court to warm up. Such hostility went up a notch at the team announcement, with the loudest boos of all reserved for none other than Dillon “the Villain” Brooks.