Divisive, ruthless, brilliant - how Galthie helped France find their mojo

You feared for Matthieu Jalibert.

Left out of France's starting line-up for a game against Japan in November 2024, the extravagantly talented fly-half vented his frustration to attack coach Patrick Arlettaz and the team's mental skills staff.

Unfortunately for Jalibert, news of his dissatisfaction reached head coach Fabien Galthie.

"We had a long discussion. He told me he sensed I was not doing very well... that I could go home," Jalibert told newspaper Sud Ouest.

So Jalibert did, leaving camp rather than sitting on the bench against the All Blacks the following week.

Heading out of the set-up and good graces of Galthie can be a one-way trip.

After finished his playing career in 2003, the former France scrum-half coached at Stade Francais, Montpellier and Toulon.

Several of his former players were bruised by the experience.

"As a person, you're worthless. You should be banned from coaching. You tear your players apart like a dachshund tearing at bad bits of meat," said former Stade Francais wing Raphael Poulain to Galthie in 2005 shortly before, unsurprisingly, leaving the club.

"I wouldn't wish on anyone what I went through for a year and a half at my workplace," said Jean-Baptiste Peyras-Loustalet of his time working with Galthie at Montpellier.

Galthie oversaw coaching environments which were brutal in their honesty, and just about everything else. For his critics, it was a personality cult overseeing a Hunger Games-style selection policy.

Galthie, a deep thinker who reads philosophy and classical literature, has admitted he believes in an innate French characteristic, to fight hardest and best when pushed to the brink.

His methods have fans though.

"Fabien is without doubt the best coach I have ever had a chance to work with in a 16-year playing career," says former Scotland number eight Johnnie Beattie, who spent two seasons under Galthie at Montpellier.

"He has an incredible understanding of rugby, how to create space for people, to generate go-forward and momentum and to use the tools you have effectively to attack in a creative, fun, entertaining, and really enjoyable way as a player."

Beattie says that, amid unforgiving moments, Galthie could also create occasions away from rugby to draw his team together.

"I was used to being beasted at Glasgow Warriors for pre-season," added Beattie.

"We would go to RM Condor, the naval base near Arbroath and work with Royal Marines doing gun runs and press-ups and sit-ups on sand dunes in what felt like -10C.

"A year later, in my first pre-season in Montpellier, on the first day of testing we did a lap and a half of a 400m track and then Fabien took us down to the port in Montpellier to help the fishermen pull in the catch and have a glass of white wine with them over lunch.

"My eyes were opened to a different way of working [and] a different appreciation for the sport."

Galthie has changed somewhat since those abrasive early coaching days.

In his final club stint - a season with Toulon - the club's then president Mourad Boudjellal saw a shift.

"He could use robots instead of players, and he'd be fine with it," Boudjellal told Midi Olympique, external when Galthie was installed as the next France coach in May 2019.

"I met Fabien when he was heavily criticised because of all this but he was trying to change his approach, to evolve his relationship with people. I discovered a sensitive, vulnerable, cultured guy with a wide range of interests."

An international environment, where the stakes are higher, but access to players is much shorter, perhaps needs a lighter touch to bring talents together.

When Jalibert walked out of the squad, Galthie remained sanguine.

"Everyone has their own emotions and is free to share them," Galthie said.

"We need determination, strong players. Up until now he's always given his best. He will continue with the national team, if he so chooses. It's down to him to decide."

Jalibert duly hit form, returned and, but for a minor calf problem that ruled him out of the win over Italy, would have started all five of this year's Six Nations matches.

Galthie has not mellowed too much though.

The ruthlessness and intensity remains.

At the start of the tournament, he axed France's all-time leading try scorer Damian Penaud, still only 29, along with back-row stalwart and sometime captain Gregory Alldritt and veteran centre Gael Fickou.

"There are some injuries obviously, but there is also a spirit of competition between the players and in some positions we want to keep them on their toes to compete with each other for the positions, to make the team," Galthie told BBC Sport at the start of the tournament.

"That's my way of thinking."

It is difficult to deny it is working.

A bonus-point victory over England on Saturday will land France a third Six Nations title in seven attempts under Galthie. If there has only been one Grand Slam in that time, there has also never been a finish outside the top two.

A consistently successful team, playing with panache and pace, has been bought into by the wider French public.

Recent figures showed the nation's rugby team pulled in a higher average television audience than their footballing counterparts.

"We said at Montpellier that when this Fabien gets hold of the French team he is absolutely going to rock it," says Beattie, who still lives in the south of France.

"And that is what they have done

"There are more people tuning in to watch Antoine Dupont and this crop of French players than there are for Kylian Mbappe and that is largely down to the brand of rugby, the consistency of performance and the sense of fun they have given back to the French rugby public."

On Saturday evening, Galthie and his players may well have another Six Nations trophy to offer up to their people as well.