Although the opening stages have been overshadowed here by the World Cup final, fans have not been deprived totally of daily coverage of the entire day's race on the national TV channel, FR2, or of regular reports of progress on public and commercial radio stations.
The first stages in Ireland have been relegated to the inside pages of the national sporting daily L'Equipe. The fact that French riders have not dominated the early stages has played its part in editorial decisions.
Even so, the newspaper devoted six pages to the first stage, including a special article outlining the second stage devoted to "Sean Kelly country". This included an interview with Jimmy Fahey, who has christened his pub Le Maillot Jaune, conversations with the family of Kelly's close friend Sean Meade, and a tribute to Kelly's half-brother, Martin Power.
"As far as Sean Kelly is concerned, he has the same image in Carrick-on-Suir as Bernadette has in Lourdes," the paper reported. "He's here, there and everywhere."
French viewers were able to watch the dramatic events yesterday live while Chris Boardman's accident was flashed on all radio stations which cut into their regular programmes to announce the news on what is still France's most popular sporting event.
The main radio and TV bulletins all carried reports on the race while the second state TV network, FR3, devoted 12 minutes to a summary of the day's results in its daily Journal du Tour which is rebroadcast to French TV stations throughout the world.
These summaries included considerable scene-setting, stressing the peaceful nature of the Irish countryside, often viewed from a helicopter, while pointing out that the Irish stages were largely preparation for harder races in France when the tour approaches the mountains.