He was known as “the quiet man of French rugby”, but Marc Cécillon, who played 46 times for his country, went on trial yesterday for murdering his wife at a party.

Cécillon, 47, a forward who played international rugby from 1988 to 1995 and captained the French side five times, has pleaded guilty to pulling out a Magnum .357 handgun and firing five bullets into Chantal, his wife, after she refused to leave the party with him in August 2004.

The rugby player was overpowered by friends. He told police that he was so drunk that he remembered nothing of the incident, at a barbecue near their home in the Isère département, near Grenoble. He was found to have six times the legal driving limit of alcohol in his blood.

Cécillon faces possible life imprisonment for murder. The charge of premeditation was brought because Cécillon test-fired his gun when he went home to collect it after failing to persuade his wife to leave the party with him. He shot her when he returned to the barbecue.

Wearing a white shirt and glasses, Cécillon avoided eye-contact with Céline and Angélique, his two daughters, as he entered the court. The pair, both in their twenties, have refused to visit him in prison. They told police that their father’s alcoholism had turned family life into hell.

Marinette Chapuis, his mother-in-law, said: “He knows I’m not expecting his apologies and that I don’t want them.” Mme Chapuis told investigators that her daughter had been planning to leave Cécillon and had consulted a lawyer.

The case has drawn attention to the trouble that top sportsmen and women face in adapting to life after their professional retirement. Cécillon is said to have started drinking when he became depressed after failing to land a job in the rugby world after 1999. His only qualification was a pâtissier diploma. He became abusive towards his wife and refused treatment.

Among witnesses expected at the trial are Bernard Lapasset, the French Rugby Federation chief, and Jo Maso, the team manager.

Louis Marchand, a former boss of the Bourgoin-Jallieu club where Cécillon spent his career, said: “One cannot excuse what he did, but one can explain it.”

Richard Zelmati, Cécillon’s lawyer, said that the case was a “crime of passion set against a background of alcohol and depression. He only knew how to be a rugby player.”

Psychologists told prosecutors that Cécillon had a fragile personality and was prone to “raving, passionate jealousy”.

According to Nigel Geany, a team-mate and friend, Cécillon drank no more than other players before his retirement. “He was a shy, reserved, even discreet, guy,” he said.

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