Why Are All the Fans Jumping Up and Down?

IF YOU’VE READ much of this blog you’ll know that we (OK, mostly I) have been to quite a few sporting events in and around Nice. You can read about some of them here, here, here, or here.

At soccer and hockey games in Nice there is a lot of singing and chanting – very typical in Europe. Once such chant involves the entire stadium jumping up and down while performing the ‘song’. Patrick and I both tried in vain to figure out 1) what everyone is saying, and 2) why was everyone jumping up and down? After listen to the chant dozens of times, all we managed to ascertain is that the chant had nine syllables and the final word was niçois, as in, ‘from Nice.’ So when the fans began this ritualistic chant I would jump up and down with the crowd and yell, ‘blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Niçois!’ Patrick was incredibly embarrassed. To make him fell better I promised to go to the internet to find out what the fans were really saying. A few clicks around Google and I found what I was looking for. Here is the chant in French followed by a translation:

Qui ne sauté pas n’est pas Niçois.

Translation: whoever is not jumping is not from Nice.

Ah, that explains a lot. Check out this link to see the chant at a real match. The clip is from Lyon, not Nice. But that's probably OK because many in France think Lyon was the first club to use it.
CJS