Savate

                      Boxe-Française

is a ring sport using gloves and boots, in which punches and kicks are used to win either by KO or by judges’ decision. In Assaut fighters score points with touches, and all force excluded. In Combat full contact is used to seek to win by KO.

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Savate traces its history back to the 1800s. At the time a Southern French slipper fighting form known as Chausson or jeu marseillais practised high kicking. Savate was the name of the northern French street fighting style. It is easy to imagine neighbourly rivalry, with the English – who settled duels by boxing with the hands – regarding foot fighting unseemly, and the French seeing fist-fighting as graceless or uncouth. Of course the two came together, which is no surprise for two countries which were at war with each other in the early part of the century. Savate’s foundation myth is that French fighter Charles Lecour was beaten by a young English boxer named Owen Swift, although doubts are cast on this story. Nonetheless it was Lecour who formalised the art of Boxe-Française Savate in 1838, to which date the founding of Savate is normally ceded.

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