Yet it may be French rugby, if not fully emerging from the dark depths, is on the way back. Two key figures are coach Jacques Brunel and captain Mathieu Bastareaud.
Yes, Bastareaud. The 125kg centre, almost as broad as he is tall, looks like he has eaten a Volkswagen Beetle and wants to run you over with it. As a 20-year-old rookie on tour in New Zealand in 2009, he fell down drunk after a night out, hit his head on a table and then, fearing for his rugby career, concocted a remarkable fiction involving a fight with five men in Wellington.
That sparked a public apology from Prime Minister John Key and, when Bastareaud eventually confessed that he'd just cobbled the whole thing up, he was met with scorn and derision, not just from Kiwis. Later, in his disarmingly frank autobiography, he laid out how scared he had been and how he later tried to commit suicide.
Bastareaud's rise to maturity (though a recent homophobic insult to an opposing player earned him three weeks off the field, more scorn and derision and questions about the depth of that maturity) has seen him become the rock around which the French have built their tactics.
Never the fastest midfielder in the world, Bastareaud is probably the most powerful along with Sonny Bill Williams, similarly adept at offloads. But perhaps the biggest part of his game is turnovers.
Think Waisake Nahalo and the turnovers he pulls off for the All Blacks. Bastareaud, they say, produces up to five a game by staying on his feet and power that either locks the ball in place or drags it from the carrier's grasp.
Meanwhile, 64-year-old Brunel has inherited the team from the eccentricities of former coaches (in last November's internationals, previous coach Guy Noves used no fewer than 68 players). Noves attempted to tame the clubs; Brunel is being consultative.
Instead of adopting Noves' elite player system, Brunel has so far played diplomat, working with the clubs to foster a system of consent - where only players fit and hungry are chosen by Brunel, in close consultation with the clubs.
There are signs this is working. France finished fourth in the Six Nations this year but beat England and could have beaten champions Ireland, falling only to a dropped goal with 84 minutes on the clock. They also lost 14-10 to Wales, the difference being a Welsh try scored while most of the French side argued with the referee about the kickoff not going 10m.
This tour will also see the return of five of the nine players stood down during the Six Nations after "misbehaviour" led to an Edinburgh police inquiry into an alleged sexual assault (it was found there was no case to answer).
That includes hotshot winger Teddy Thomas, first-five Anthony Belleau, centre Remi Lamerat, flanker Alexandre Lapandry and rookie lock Felix Lambey.
No one is saying France will win the three-test series. But this team is nowhere near as vulnerable as fixed Kiwi mindsets have it. Only two of the 32 are new internationals; only 11 have played fewer than 10 tests.
They have long experience in the form of celebrated halfback/first-five Morgan Parra, 66-test lock Yoann Maestri , centres Wesley Fofana and Gael Fickou - the latter still only 24 and yet to live up to once being called the next big global superstar - plus 47-test fullback/winger Maxime Medard. New winger Remy Grosso has played only four tests but was man of the match against England.
The French tight five are always combative; they usually have decent loose forwards (such as Kevin Gourdon) although all three of those who played well against England are either injured or rested, and they may struggle in that area.
The World Cup will still be the main target and it's most likely we will see a lot of possession rugby, rush defence and percentage play by this French team. But team spirit, focus and confidence still count for something and, if Brunel has succeeded in building that, they could be dangerous indeed.
