Ulster have taken some massive French scalps at Ravenhill - Toulouse, Stade Francais Paris and Biarritz Olympique are among the French teams who have left Belfast empty handed - but Ulster have yet to taste Heineken Cup success on French soil.
They did manage a 35-35 draw in a Toulouse thriller in the 2000 / 2001 competition but all other trips across to France have ended in failures.
Simon Best's team kicked off their Pool 4 challenge with a 27-0 home win over Benetton Treviso in Round 1 and now they travel to face a Biarritz Olympique team licking their wounds after a 22-10 defeat at Saracens.
"Obviously it would be brilliant to break that French duck," said coach Mark McCall, who was Ulster captain in 1999 when they won the Heineken Cup by beating Colomiers 21-6 in Dublin. "We have spent 10 years trying to do that - and it has to happen sometime - so why not on Saturday?
"We did not play particularly well against Treviso but it was pleasing to win and pick up five points with a try bonus point.
"We had played exceptionally well over the previous two weeks but against Treviso we came down a couple of notches.
"We will have to pick our game up and improve in all areas if we are to do anything in Biarritz, where they have a formidable home record, and it is a big challenge for us.
"I was in London to see Saracens beat Biarritz and although Biarritz did pick up a few injuries they have so many big name players that they really do have a star-studded squad to cover those injuries.
"In short they are a formidable outfit and they will want to get over that Saracens result in front of their home crowd.
"Saracens, who weathered the opening 15-minute Biarritz storm, were very impressive and Biarritz have something of a history of starting the Heineken Cup tournaments slowly.
"Last season they lost their opening game at Wasps but still went on to qualify for the quarter-finals before going down to Stade Francais Paris in the semi-finals.
"In fact this is now the third season in a row that they have lost their opening games but in 2003 / 2004 they again went all the way to the semi-finals so they certainly know how to bounce back from poor starts.
"I also thought Biarritz were very unlucky with some of their tactical substitutions as players going on then got injured and they were all over the place by the end. That certainly affected their performance."
With Munster losing at Sale Sharks and Leinster going down to Bath Rugby at their new "home" at the RDS, Ulster posted the sole Irish success story in Round 1.
"I guess scoring the necessary four tries, which at one stage certainly did not look on, and keeping our composure in a frustrating stop-start match were the pluses from the Treviso game," he said.
"Now we have to step up our game and meet the huge challenge of taking Biarritz on in front of their passionate home crowd."
