One word changed, and French fans noticed
Nina Tonji sang La Marseillaise before kickoff at the Stade de France on Sunday, and she did not sing it as written. The Franco-Canadian singer, born in Montreal, replaced “qu’un sang impur” with “qu’un sang uni” in the closing line. Some French supporters said so on social media within minutes.
The NFL picked Tonji to open the first regular-season game the league has ever staged in France. A sellout crowd of around 80,000 packed the stadium in Saint-Denis for Pittsburgh against New Orleans, with the event sold as a showcase for the league’s international push.
The original line has a long history of controversy. In 2023 the French government published an explanation on its own website, arguing that the “impure blood” never referred to foreigners. It pointed instead at nobles who were supposed to have pure blood and still betrayed France by backing the counter-revolution.
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Steelers win a quiet one
The football itself was less talked about. Pittsburgh beat the Saints 16-10 for a third straight win, leaning on an effective ground game while the Saints never found a way through. French outlets described the afternoon as a modest show, with a lot of production around a game that stayed tight and low-scoring.
Paul Pogba was among the visitors in the stands. For the league, the bigger story was the date itself: a first NFL game on French soil and a promise, made by commissioner Roger Goodell earlier this month, that the league will come back.
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