The big advantage that Antoine Dupont believes can see France home

Antoine Dupont hopes playing three matches in front of a partisan home support can help France in their quest to retain the Guinness Six Nations title.

Les Bleus sealed their first championship triumph since 2022 when they defeated Scotland on a raucous Saturday night in Stade de France last March.

Captain Dupont believes the fact they face Ireland and England in Paris, and Italy in Lille – starting with a box-office opener against Andy Farrell’s men next Thursday night – can only aid the French as they target back-to-back titles for the first time since their successes in 2006 and 2007.

“We’ve got three games at home, so it’s an opportunity to play in front of our fans,” said the Toulouse scrum-half, speaking at the Six Nations launch event in Edinburgh on Monday.

“Ireland next Thursday is the first one for us and for the last couple of years now, there has been a very beautiful show of delight between people at the games.

“The atmosphere is very special when we play at home, when we feel the support of the fans and I hope we will not disappoint them.

“It’s an opportunity to play at home, to feel this good energy from the stands. But we welcome three big teams who will want to claim this trophy as well, so we have to be well prepared and take the good side of playing at home.”

France begin their title defence on the back of an autumn campaign in which they defeated Australia and Fiji but lost to a South Africa side, who played the entire second half with 14 men.

“Obviously we’ll try to keep this trophy at home,” said Dupont. “It will be tough, like every year. It’s a huge tournament, the level is very high and every team is improving each year, so we’ll try to do our best to keep it.

“We’re not very happy with our series in November. We hope we can be better and be able to play our best rugby. It will be very tricky to win the games.”