Background: Some studies have shown that engagement in sports, as a spectator or a supporter, can have an impact on suicidal behaviours.Some of them have shown that completed suicides or attempted suicides were decreased during sport events.All these studies were performed in US, UK or Canada and the effect of sport events on suicide has never been tested in France where sport events attendance is particularly high for football.One of the greatest sport events in France was the 1998 football World Cup (France 10th June to 12th July) for which the widespread of joy was considered as unprecedented since the Liberation of 1944.Objectives: Our objective was to determine whether this event had a short term impact on the number of suicides in France.Methods: Exhaustive individual daily data on suicides from 1979 to 2006 were obtained from the French epidemiological centre on the medical causes of death (CepiDC-INSERM; France).These data were analysed using the seasonal ARIMA model.The overall effect of the football wodd cup was tested together with potential specific impact on days following the French team games.Results: A total of 314,290 suicides were recorded in France between 1979 and 2006, with a mean number per month of 936.The general trend and the seasonal variation (with a peak in spring) suggested that first-order and twelfth-order difference transformation of each original series should be performed to remove trend and seasonality.Between 11th June and 11th July, a significant decline of 95 suicides was observed (-10.3 %), this effect being the strongest among men and people aged between 15 and 44.A significant decrease was also observed the days following French team games (-19.9 %).Discussion: Our results are in favour of an effect of sport nation-wide events on suicidal behaviours and are consistent with other studies.Many of the theories explaining the relationship between sports and suicide are related to social integration, highlighting the importance of social support in suicide prevention.