What a difference four months can make.

Last October, Paris was awash with white-shirted Englishmen giddy with excitement, biere and pie-eyed optimism.

Free hotel rooms were rarer than hairs on the scalp of Shaun Edwards. Match tickets were changing hands for twenty times their face value. Friends you hadn’t seen for 15 years were suddenly getting in contact and casually asking if you knew anyone at the RFU who might be able to “do them a favour”.

This time around, Paris is as Paris always was before.

Men in leather trousers smoke outside cafes. Women wearing sunglasses drag small aggressive dogs through heavy traffic. The small dogs defecate all over the pavements. The men in leather trousers shrug their shoulders at other men wearing orange ponchos.

At the Gare du Nord, Eurostar trains are arriving with some seats still empty. Zulu-era British soldiers are not dancing in the street with friends dressed as the Queen. No-one has tried to kiss a policeman.

The hard core have made it over, but it is an expeditionary force rather than an invasion. And with just hours to go until kick-off, the natural negativity of the English sport fan is in full bloom.

“A pessimist is never disappointed,” 45-year-old Steve Green tells me, with only half an eye on one of the women in sunglasses.

His friend Daniel Herbert, who witnessed the second-half debacles against Wales and Italy, has a simple solution. “I’m going to walk out at half-time,” he says.

The only way any of them can see England winning is if they adhere to what we might call the Dean Richards school of international relations – stick it up your jumper and smash the Frenchman.

It’s almost reassuring to see national sporting stereotypes proved so durable. England must try to win by rumbling slowly over their opponents like tanks in first gear; the French should attack like lunatics from all over the shop, essaying moves so expansive that no-one will be allowed to touch down for a try until every player in the team has handled the ball at least eight times and sold two extravagant dummies apiece.

Only when you talk to the French fans do you realise that the hangover from England’s World Cup semi-final win is still haunting the host country.

The front page of the Midi Olympique newspaper summed up Gallic fears beautifully - an enormous close-up picture of Andrew Sheridan, Simon Shaw and Phil Vickery with the apocalyptic headline “ILS ARRIVENT” emblazoned across the top.

“Les Francais retrouvent Samedi a les Anglais avec une charniere inexperimentee Parra/Trinh-Duc et un bauteur de circonstance, Traille. Attention a la casse!” warned the main article, which for those of you with even worse French than Mark Regan, roughly translates as, “We’re going out against these brutes with a pair of kids and a bloke who can’t kick? Help!”

Davide, a hulking former second-row who has travelled from Caen for the match, is genuinely scared by what England’s pack might do to his inexperienced side.

“Sherry-dan,” he groans miserably, shaking his head, before revealing that the semi-final defeat hurt him so badly that he couldn’t sleep in the same room as his English girlfriend for two days afterwards.

“Your forwards are so strong,” he says. “Yes, Heymans and Clerc are playing well, but if we don’t have the ball, what can they do?

“Rugby is about forwards. I should know. I was captain of my team, and in all that time I only spoke to a back once. In fact, I can only count up to eight.”

The effect of his words is lost slightly when he strides off singing Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby”, but his point is clear: the English might be scared of the French, but the French are also seriously scared by England.

Davide’s friend Sebastien harbours equally dark thoughts.

“You have Wilkinson to kick. We have Traille. I like what Lieveremont is trying to do, but this worries me."

Pessimism versus fear. Brute strength against fling-it-about flair. Old hands v young kids. Even the women in sunglasses might want to watch it.