In 19th century France, kicking became the antithesis to English boxing. The breeding grounds were about the Western Mediterranean. 

In the south, especially in the port of Marseille, sailors developed a fighting style involving high kicks and open-handed slaps. It is conjectured that this kicking style was developed in this way to allow the fighter to use a hand to hold onto something for balance on a rocking ship's deck, and that the kicks and slaps were used on land to avoid the legal penalties for using a closed fist, which was considered a deadly weapon under the law. It was known as jeu marseillais (game from Marseille), and was later renamed chausson (slipper, after the type of shoes the sailors wore).

Savate was then in the 19th century a type of street fighting common in Paris and northern France. Traditional savate was a northern French development, especially in Paris' slums, and always used heavy shoes and boots derived from its potential military origins. Street fighting savate, unlike chausson, kept the kicks low, almost never targeted above the groin, and were delivered with vicious, bone-breaking intent. Parisian Savate also featured open hand blows, in thrusting or smashing palm strikes (le baffe) or in stunning slaps targeted to facial nerves. 

After the Napoleonic wars, boxing began to appear with chausson/savate to become boxe française (French Kickboxing), but with anti-British sentiment it took some two decades before boxing gained acceptance in France.