The French Rugby Federation is calling on World Rugby to ban tackles above the waist and outlaw gang tackles in the wake of the deaths of three young French players.

18-year-old Nicolas Chauvin, an academy player at Paris club Stade Francais, died in hospital after breaking his neck in a double tackle this month.

He was the third young French player to die since May, prompting the national federation to call for tackling laws to be modified.

The president of the French Rugby Federation and a former French National Coach, Bernard Laporte, met with World Rugby President Bill Beaumont  an chief executive Brett Gosper in Paris late last week.

Laporte later told French media that the French Rugby Federation  and the National Rugby League, which oversees France's Top 14 and ProD2 professional competitions, felt changes needed to be made to the tackle laws.

Beaumont said that player welfare and the laws of the game would be discussed at a World Rugby meeting in France in March.

[Source: stuff]