France women's national football team (Les Bleues)

The unofficial international matches between the world wars

Since the end of the First World War, there had already been a women's football club in France, which had set up its own organisation and structures in response to the rejection of the "men's association" FFF and its predecessor, the Comité Français Interfédéral (CFI). For this purpose interested sportswomen had already founded the Fédération des Sociétés Féminines Sportives de France (FSFSF) in 1917. The FSFSF also organised international women's matches, the first of which a selection of three Paris clubs lost 2-0 to a company team, Dick Kerr's Ladies, on the occasion of a tour of England in May 1920. English women's footballers made a return visit at the end of October, with the two matches at the Stade Pershing in Paris and Roubaix in northern France each attracting crowds of around 10,000. At the "First Women's Olympic Games" (March 1921 in Monte-Carlo), a football tournament was announced for which players from the women's club Fémina Sport Paris had travelled specially, but was not played; nor was this sport on the programme at the Women's World Games organised from 1922 by the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale.

The first real international match of those "wild years" was won by the French women in Brussels in February 1924 (2-1 against Belgium). The northern neighbours became France's most frequent opponents. With the decline of French women's football in the early 1930s, the early history of the women's national team came to an end: in April 1932, again in Brussels, they drew 0-0 with the Belgians, against whom France also played their last international matches in 1933 and 1934. It was also at this time that the women's governing body ended its footballing remit.

Although FFF president Jules Rimet was himself a spectator at the Stade Pershing for the 1920 England match, the federation still does not officially recognise inter-war matches. At least at the time, this attitude corresponded to the widespread rejection of the practice of numerous sports by women, with the protagonists referring either to their alleged physical unfitness, to the contradiction with the traditional image of women or to the "display" in front of a predominantly male audience:

Legalisation of women's football and early days until the mid-1980s

It was not until the mid-1960s that women's football matches, which had not been legalised by the federation but were well attended and attracted a great deal of media attention, began to be played in France again, and permanent women's teams were organised - initially mainly in northern France and Alsace - at existing clubs or in newly founded ones. When the Federal Council of the FFF (Conseil fédéral), which was made up of 100 per cent men, decided to legalise women's football on 29 March 1970, there were already almost 2,200 female club players in the country. In retrospect, the federation justified its move by saying that "the militant commitment of women's football advocates [had] influenced the imagination of the 'stronger sex' to the effect that the sport could be played in ways other than those hitherto customary." The sports historian Laurence Prudhomme-Poncet, on the other hand, assessed the motivation for this move more in terms of the officials' interest in retaining control over all football in the country. They would have feared that the women would set up an autonomous federation, as they had done in 1917 - a move that had become a reality in French 15s rugby a few weeks earlier. The FFF installed a women's football commission, whose first chairman, the Reims "women's football pioneer" Pierre Geoffroy, also assembled and coached the national team. In July and September 1970, two matches were played between a French team and an Italian side, for which the federation had given its permission but refused to allow the French women to play on behalf of the FFF. In February 1971, the federation was still struggling with the idea of forming a genuine national women's team. When the Fédération Internationale et Européenne de Football Féminin (FIEFF) invited France to take part in the second Women's World Cup in Mexico in August of that year - the first, held in Italy in 1970, was not attended by France - the Federal Council recommended that a club team should represent France. A month later, however, the council did agree to the formation of a select team, which was accompanied to Mexico by Geoffroy, another FFF official and a league referee. The federation's newsletter France Football Officiel even published a photo of the travelling party on 11 August. The difficulty the federation had in doing so is illustrated by a letter from its general secretary, Michel Cagnion, dated February 1971: "In view of the European Football Union's reservations, expressed on several occasions, about competitions not under its control, the FFF gives its permission for a private [sic!] team to take part in the first Women's World Cup."

To qualify for Mexico, this first sélection française had to play the Netherlands on 17 April 1971, with the French women prevailing 4-0. Sélectionneur Pierre Geoffroy fielded 15 players, most of whom came from Stade Reims. The encounter was the first ever FIFA-recognised women's international since 2011. Four months later, a 17-player squad travelled to Mexico, made up by Geoffroy of nine women from Stade Reims, three from other clubs in northern France and one each from Rouen, Strasbourg, Mâcon, Caluire and Marseille. France lost 3-0 to Denmark and 1-0 to Italy in front of a crowd of around 30,000, but beat England 3-2 in the final play-off to return to the tournament in fifth place.

The FFF did not recognise those four matches until the present day, although it now mentions them more frequently in its publications; for the federation, the encounter of 28 November 1971 against Italy (final score 2-2) is still considered the Bleues' first official international match in 2017. The problem of how to deal with the recognition of early internationals is neither exclusively French nor purely national, however; the European and world federations also struggled for a long time to integrate women's football, which initially did not go beyond its "passive toleration". UEFA only decided in November 1971 that national member associations should "take over control and organisation" and issued framework guidelines for this in April 1973, while FIFA was only prepared to support women's football financially from 1987/88, having "almost ignored" it until then. It was not until 1986, with the creation of a Women's Football Committee, that it began to follow the unstoppable reality against still-prevailing opposition within its own ranks; indeed, it did not set about a planned review of the early history of international women's football until the run-up to the 2011 World Cup.

France's results in 1971 were no match for their international counterparts. Fifth place in Mexico was achieved in an unofficial tournament - FIFA did not organise recognised World Cups until 1991 - with only six nations taking part, and France's balanced record could not be repeated over a long period. The national team played only a handful of international matches - one in 1972, three in 1973 and 1974, two in 1975, one in 1976, and three in 1977 and 1978 - and their sporting record was negative, with eleven defeats and four draws to just one win (against Ireland in 1973). This did not change until 1979, when France lost only one of their four matches but won two. The 1980s, however, began in much the same way as the 1970s as a whole, with three defeats in five matches. Public interest quickly waned and women's football lacked a lobby, as well as enjoying no scheduled support from the FA; by 1977 a single, three-day training camp had been held with 25 players. This only changed under Geoffroy's successor, Francis Coché, who introduced training courses for national team players every two years, but they were still not very successful. Coché was by no means an unqualified advocate of women's football; in fact, as late as the late 1970s he had hoped that "the girls who play this sport will later, as wives and mothers, encourage their sons' enthusiasm for football [sic! On the other hand, the "very authoritarian, strict and demanding coach" recognised early on that better physical and tactical training was already needed in the clubs than had been the norm up to then.

From 1980 to 1986 inclusive, the Bleues lost on average every second match (6 wins, 7 draws, 13 defeats). They were eliminated in the first round of the European Championship, which lasted from 1982 to 1984. In France, too, only around 2,500 women footballers held player's passes during this period. A lack of structures in club football also contributed to the stagnation of the women's national team. Although the FFF introduced an annual championship final round with the 1974/75 season, dominated by Stade Reims and AS Étrœungt until 1982 and VGA Saint-Maur and ASJ Soyaux from then on, a unified, national league in which players would have been challenged much more regularly than just on the occasion of a handful of final round matches was not created until 1992. This had already resulted in the 1970s in a good half-dozen French women - including internationals such as Nicole Mangas, Nadine Juillard and Ghislaine Royer-Souef - signing on with one of the clubs from the Italian league, where they were also paid for their sporting commitment. Moreover, given the low frequency of international matches, it took a long time for an international player to reach the figure of 20 caps. The first to do so was Reims goalkeeper Marie-Louise Butzig in November 1980 - including the 1971 Netherlands game - followed by outfield players Michèle Wolf (FC Lyon, May 1981), who also became the first Frenchwoman to break the 30-mark in 1984 and was, for journalist Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau, the "first star of the 1970s", and Sylvie Bailly of Soyaux (February 1983).

This period also saw a symbolic event within the FFF: in 1985, Marilou Duringer became the first woman to be elected to the federal council of the football federation. She had played football in the Alsatian town of Schwindratzheim since 1965, was one of the first French women to hold an official player's licence, and subsequently worked for decades as an honorary official at FC Vendenheim. Immediately after her election, she was appointed head of delegation for the national women's team, a position she still held at the 2011 World Cup.

The "Mignot era" (1987-1997)

In 1987, the FFF appointed Aimé Mignot as national coach for the first time, a man who had previously enjoyed success as a player and coach in the men's professional game. This fact was seen by some seasoned internationals, such as Bernadette Constantin, as a "sign of increased recognition", and training methods also changed radically:

Whereas until then there had never been more than five international matches a year, Mignot made sure to increase that number right at the start of his tenure. His aim was to give the players more international practice and to improve their coordination, understanding of the game and tactical behaviour by holding more joint training sessions immediately before matches. After failing to qualify for the European Championship, the Bleues ended the year on a positive note, winning five of their six matches. In 1988, France's women reached double figures in international matches for the first time, but their yearly records were again negative up to and including 1991, and they did not feature in the finals of the following European Championships or the first official World Cup in China.

From 1992 onwards, Mignot's measures began to bear fruit, helped in the following years by the concentration of forces in club football thanks to the introduction of a national first division. The French women continued to miss out on qualifying for all the major UEFA and FIFA tournaments until 1996, and the first women's Olympic tournament was also held without them in 1996. But the Mignot era not only saw the national team grow closer together in terms of experience, it also saw them face some of their most formidable international opponents. This period saw France make their international debuts against the USA, who the Bleues met eleven times between then and 1997, Germany (four games) and China (two games). And even though France were usually at a disadvantage against them at first, their growing experience had a countable effect; in all five years the international match record was positive, and the national team also qualified for the eight-team European Championship finals in Norway and Sweden in 1997. In fact, France's goal difference with Spain was the only thing that prevented them from reaching the last four. In the immediate run-up to the European Championship, the women were also allowed to use the national training centre in Clairefontaine - a privilege previously reserved for male footballers.

When Aimé Mignot retired as national coach in the autumn of 1997, he had a very successful record: In 85 international matches under his stewardship, the French women had won 38, drawn 18 and suffered 29 defeats. His tenure also saw the national debuts of France record-holder Sandrine Soubeyrand and, well into the 21st century, the Bleues' most prolific goalscorer, Marinette Pichon. Among the mainstays of the Mignot era were Bernadette Constantin, Hélène Hillion-Guillemin, Françoise Jézéquel, Isabelle Musset, Sandrine Roux and Sophie Ryckeboer-Charrier.
In addition, during the later 1990s, the Football Federation consolidated the perspective-essential youth development work with the A and B girls' national teams (now known as the U-19s and U-17s respectively), and also created the so-called U-21s, a selection aimed at introducing young adult players to the Bleues. The U-17s reached the final of the (as yet unofficial) European Youth Championship for the first time in 1996, while the U-19s did so two years later. In the long term, the FFF hope to see positive effects from the regular joint training camps held between their U-16 girls and their German counterparts as part of the Franco-German Youth Office.

Sustained upswing under the first trainer

After the 1997 European Championship, Élisabeth Loisel, previously very successful as a player and club coach and assistant coach of the Bleues since 1989, replaced Mignot. In 1998, with the active support of the new chairman of the Direction Technique Nationale, the men's "world champion" Aimé Jacquet, she ensured that the women's and girls' national teams were also able to make systematic use of the facilities at the French Centre technique national Fernand-Sastre in Clairefontaine. She was convinced that, although sport had to take account of "psychological and physiological differences, there is no difference between men and women in terms of technical and tactical training". Loisel also called for professionalisation in club football at the turn of the millennium, but this failed to materialise due to "somewhat timid association policies", as well as a girls' and women's specific coaching education in Clairefontaine. She also encouraged national team players to move to the strong foreign leagues, which Marinette Pichon and Stéphanie Mugneret-Béghé (both of whom went to the US professional league) and Élodie Woock (to the German Bundesliga) did.

Loisel led the Bleues to another European final in 2001 and their first World Cup final in 2003, and although France again failed to progress beyond the group stages at either tournament, her stewardship is inextricably linked with the French women's rise to the top of the world. When FIFA introduced a world ranking for women's national teams in 2003, France were initially ranked ninth, fifth best in Europe behind Norway, Germany, Sweden and Denmark. In 2005 - the year France again qualified for the European Championship finals, where, as in 1997, they were eliminated only on goal difference after the group stages - they climbed to fifth, with only Germany and Norway ahead of them within UEFA, before dropping to seventh in the world at the end of Loisel's tenure.

The coach continued on the path begun by Aimé Mignot, increasing the annual number of training courses and international matches; in the six years from 2001 to 2006, the national team played an average of 13 matches. This led to five women finding inclusion in the international "100 club" during Loisel's tenure: Corinne Diacre, Marinette Pichon, Stéphanie Mugneret-Béghé, Hoda Lattaf and Sandrine Soubeyrand. In addition, the improved "substructure" and the intensified cooperation with the colleagues responsible for the youth national teams had a positive effect, with Elisabeth Loisel turning numerous young players from the particularly strong U-18/U-19 (European champions in 2003 and runners-up in 2002, 2005 and 2006) into senior national team players. Australia, Brazil, South Korea and, among others, Austria have also widened the circle of opposing women's national teams.

It was also under Loisel that France recorded their first win over Germany (2003), as well as what remains the highest tally in their international history (14-0 over Algeria, 1998). At the end of their nine years at the helm of the Bleues, the French women boasted an unprecedented record of 59 wins and 21 draws, with just 30 defeats.

2007 to 2013: Consolidation at the top of the world rankings

As under his predecessor, the French national side were mere spectators at their first two major tournaments under Bruno Bini, who was appointed coach at the start of 2007. In 2009, however, they qualified for the European Championship, not only making it through the group stages for the first time in their international history, but also narrowly missing out on the quarter-finals against the Netherlands after two Frenchwomen hit only the goalposts in the decisive penalty shoot-out. What followed was a year in which the French won ten of their eleven international matches and drew once, qualifying for the 2011 World Cup without dropping a point and with a 50-0 scoreline, and were even considered favourites in the run-up to the tournament. The Bleues finished fourth, and although they lost to Germany, USA and - in the third-place match - Sweden, their performance had "made a difference to women's football in France". It also meant that the French were one of only two European teams to secure a place in the 2012 Olympic football tournament, which they also finished fourth in.

Even more so than for Élisabeth Loisel, the team concept was paramount for Bini, as he pointedly put it in 2011 when the French World Cup squad was announced: "These are not the 21 best players in France, but the best who can go far in the competition as a group. He was helped by the possibility of "block formation" as the French league moved towards a concentration of just four top clubs - and among those, primarily the 2011 and 2012 Champions League winners, Olympique Lyon. Of the 14 women who formed the core of the team in 2012/13 (see illustration right), only five did not play for Lyon, namely Soubeyrand, Thiney (both from Juvisy), Boulleau (Paris Saint-Germain), Delie and Meilleroux (Montpellier).

Bini, who had brought former international Corinne Diacre onto his staff as co-coach, improved combination play and increased attacking strength. The tactical formation ended up being more like a 4-3-3 than a 4-5-1 system. He continued to rely on many of the players who had become mainstays under his predecessor, with Sonia Bompastor, Laura Georges, Elise Bussaglia, Camille Abily and Louisa Nécib all crossing the 100-cap mark. The coach, who had previously enjoyed great success with the French U-18/U-19 side (European junior champions in 2003), also helped a number of young players make their debuts, including four 2010 European U-19 champions. A first of a different kind came in December 2011, when the French women played two 'home' matches in their Caribbean overseas departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique respectively. In January 2012, Bruno Bini was named the world's third best women's coach of 2011 at the FIFA Ballon d'Or gala. However, France were once again eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the 2013 European Championship after emerging from the preliminary round with no losses and having been declared title contenders by many media outlets. Le Monde then went on to say that, having missed out on a podium finish at a continental tournament for the fourth successive time since 2009, the French women had "once again failed at a crucial moment", which should make the coach - "whose contribution to the development of French women's football is undeniable" - question his own future after this "relatively poor performance".

In a total of 99 matches under Bruno Bini, the French record was 69 wins, 16 draws and 14 defeats; the Frenchwomen meanwhile moved back up to fifth place in the world rankings and were Europe's second-best women's team. Nevertheless, on 30 July 2013 the FFF Executive Committee unilaterally terminated Bini's contract, which ran until 2015.

2013-2017: Bruno Bini's heavy legacy

The appointment of Philippe Bergeroo as Bini's successor had surprised the media, who tended to favour someone with practical experience of women's football - such as Bini's assistant Corinne Diacre, U-17 women's coach Guy Ferrier, former U-21 coach Gérard Prêcheur or Olympique Lyon women's success coach Patrice Lair. Bergeroo's first major task was to qualify the Bleues for the 2015 World Cup finals in Canada. To that end, he first secured the services of France's then-record goalkeeper Sandrine Roux, who joined his staff to train the goalkeepers. Successful young players were also on hand: The French U-19 women's team won the European title in their age group in August 2013. To introduce new players to the senior squad, the coach had set up a B team (often referred to as the U-23s), which competes against 'second-tier' European A teams several times a year, took part in the Istria Cup in 2016 and was coached until 2020 by Jean-François Niemezcki, who had also led the French women's national student team to gold at the 2015 Universiade.

Bergeroo's first senior squad in autumn 2013, however, was largely based on footballers who had already been part of the 'inner circle' under Bruno Bini, and unlike his predecessor, he relied on a 'Parisian axis' (Houara, Delannoy, Georges, Boulleau) in the back line, with Renard the only Lyon player to join. The coach also called up three 18-year-olds in Marine Dafeur, Griedge Mbock Bathy and Sandie Toletti, as well as other newcomers in Kenza Dali, Inès Jaurena and Amel Majri. Bergeroo has appointed Wendie Renard as the Bleues' new captain in place of the retired Sandrine Soubeyrand. Élodie Thomis made her 100th international appearance in February, Gaëtane Thiney in March 2014, Eugénie Le Sommer in March 2015, Sarah Bouhaddi in January and Marie-Laure Delie in March 2016.

The French women achieved their first success in spring 2014 when they won the Cyprus Cup. France's first defeat under their new coach came in June 2014 in their 16th meeting. Nevertheless, his record of 17 games this season - including top opponents such as the USA, Brazil and Sweden - was very successful, with 13 wins and only one defeat. His women also took the World Cup qualifying campaign in their stride, finishing top of European Group 7 without dropping a point and with a goal difference of 54-3. This included a 10-0 win in Bulgaria, the second highest away score in France's international history, which they followed up with a 14-0 win in the return leg five days later. With only his fourth double-figure win - the third in a competitive match - Philippe Bergeroo joined the ranks of Élisabeth Loisel (14-0 home win over Algeria in 1998) and Bruno Bini (12-0 in Estonia in 2009). Meanwhile, under Corinne Diacre, they added an 11-0 win at home to North Macedonia in autumn 2020, also a must-win game.

The Bleues had been preparing for the World Cup finals in Canada since October 2014 by playing test matches against particularly strong opponents, all of which they defeated: Germany away, Brazil, USA and Canada in front of a home crowd, reigning world champions Japan at the 2015 Algarve Cup, in which France finished runners-up. Under Bergeroo, the Bleues climbed as high as third in the FIFA world rankings during 2014, a position they also held during the World Cup. The FFF has set Canada the target of a podium finish. However, although the French were able to convince the media and their opponents, apart from a defeat to Colombia in the group matches, they were eliminated in the quarter-finals on penalties by their German opponents. That encounter was also their 49th in a row without defeat against a European team (42 wins and seven draws, last defeat coming in the third-place match at the 2011 World Cup against Sweden). Their performance also made them one of three UEFA representatives to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Immediately after returning from Canada, the FFF extended Bergeroo's contract until the summer of 2017.

In the home match against Greece in June 2016, a European Championship qualifier that had become meaningless - France's participation in the final round was already assured - the French women won their 40th consecutive European Championship/World Cup qualifier; their last loss of points in this type of competitive match dates back to June 2007 (a 1-0 defeat at Iceland during qualifying for the 2009 European Championship). Bergeroo had also had his sights firmly set on the 2019 World Cup "home" since 2015, when the majority of the current roster will be well past 30, and has repeatedly introduced talented youngsters to the Bleues' first eleven, most recently Amandine Guérin, Clarisse Le Bihan, Valérie Gauvin and Marie-Charlotte Léger. The most prominent victim of this measure was Gaëtane Thiney, who was already not included in the starting line-up for all games during the 2015 World Cup and was not considered at all in 2015/16. Playmaker Louis Nécib also retired for personal reasons immediately after the 2016 Olympic tournament.

At the Olympic Games in Brazil, France faced Colombia, the USA and New Zealand in the group stage. Colombia were group opponents at the 2012 Olympics (and the 2015 World Cup finals), and the Bleues have also faced New Zealand on three occasions. In preparation for this tournament, the Bleues defeated China, coached by Bergeroo's predecessor Bini, and Canada, who had beaten France in the third-place play-off four years earlier; it was the latter the French had to face again in this Olympic quarter-final, and once again the North Americans thwarted French hopes of winning a medal.

Bergeroo subsequently blamed "mental problems among the players" for another early failure at the tournament. And although he had been the national coach under whose leadership the French women had achieved the best points average per game, the federation's top brass terminated Bergeroo's contract a few weeks later. After Corinne Diacre pulled out because she did not want to leave her club in mid-season, the FFF appointed as his successor Olivier Echouafni, a man in his mid-forties who had previously coached just two club teams (SC Amiens, FC Sochaux) at men's level. He reactivated Gaëtane Thiney, Camille Catala and Julie Soyer, among others, in his first call-ups, and also brought in several new young players.

Echouafni was quick to point out that many of his players were overplayed and ailing, which is why he cancelled an international trip to China scheduled for November and also decided against playing another friendly in Europe before the end of the year. For European Championship preparation, he said, the matches in March 2017 at the SheBelieves Cup made more sense. He also brought in Frédéric Née, a former striker, to his staff to try and improve the Bleues' relatively poor chance-taking of late - another key problem for the coach. Finally, he agrees with FFF president Le Graët that greater competition in the French league, which has been dominated by just three or four teams for many years, would help to raise the individual level of the national players even further.

The French won the high-profile invitational tournament in the USA, going unbeaten against England (world number five, 2-1), Germany (second, 0-0) and the hosts (first, 3-0) and showing signs of making better use of their chances against the English when they turned the game around in the closing stages, and especially against the USA.

At the 2017 European Championships, the team failed to live up to their high expectations, finishing second in their group and once again having to make an early return home after losing to England in the quarter-finals. And although FFF president Le Graët had immediately expressed his confidence in Echouafni and guaranteed his continued employment until the 2019 World Cup at home, four weeks later he presented Corinne Diacre to the public as the new national coach.

A woman to lead France to title win

Having failed to reach the quarter-finals of four successive international tournaments, the FFF were hoping that 43-year-old Corinne Diacre would at least be able to secure a podium finish, or even win their first major women's title. The conditions to realise this ambitious goal seemed favourable - not only because France were hosting the 2019 World Cup finals, but also because of Diacre's sporting CV. She was France's record international for a long time with 121 appearances, a World Cup participant in 2003, assisted Bruno Bini for three years with the Bleues, then coached a women's club team and, from 2014, a men's professional team in Ligue 2. But once again, the Bleues failed to progress beyond the quarter-finals.

The job of only the second female national coach began in September 2017 with two friendly matches against Chile - France's 52nd international opponents - and Spain, with the Bleues having played no competitive matches at all until the World Cup on home soil. Diacre needed to continue the rebuilding and rejuvenation of the national team's roster, especially with this World Cup in mind, not only because Camille Abily and Élodie Thomis had announced their retirement from the national side after the European Championships; Bouhaddi, Georges, Houara, Bussaglia and Thiney were also well past their thirties by mid-2019. Some of them, according to Diacre, who also completely replaced the previous coaching staff, "are at the end of their careers". Accordingly, she nominated no fewer than eight players for her first 23-man squad who had not yet played a single senior game; five of them - Torrent, Greboval, Sarr, Le Garrec and Cissoko - then actually made their debuts, the first three even in the starting line-up. In doing so, she set a "lone record" in the history of the national women's team, as none of her predecessors since 1997 had included more than two women with no senior experience in their debut squad. Four weeks later she tested four more newcomers, and by the end of the year the number of debutants had grown to eleven.

Diacre also rotated Laura Georges, Amandine Henry and Eugénie Le Sommer as captains in place of Wendie Renard, and she fielded the team in a 4-3-3 formation for each of their first matches. The official goal of reaching the last four at the World Cup had been tightened up by the coach to win the title less than a year and a half before the opening match, which also put a lot of pressure on herself.
A further peculiarity was that Diacre called up a conspicuous number of players from "small" first division clubs in her line-ups in the early months. On the one hand, this served to identify talent beyond the dominant clubs of Lyon, Montpellier and Paris; on the other, it was intended to strengthen women's football across the country and further develop a sense of 'us' in the run-up to the 2019 World Cup.

By the end of the calendar year, France had played England, Sweden, Ghana (a first) and Germany. France slipped temporarily to sixth in the world rankings with 2019 points, although they were only 14 points lower than third-placed England. Part of the reason for this was the fact that the Bleues were only able to play weaker-weighted friendlies. The SheBelieves Cup in early March 2018 saw the first signs of a more settled line-up, as the coach fielded identical starting line-ups against hosts USA (1-1) and Germany (3-0) - with Torrent the only newcomer, but also Tounkara, Gauvin and the experienced Gaëtane Thiney, who returned for the first time at the tournament.

A month later, Wendie Renard became the 16th Frenchwoman to join the "hundred club" against Nigeria.

After the Canada game in early April 2018, France had not played any more international matches so that the players - according to Diacre - could get a slightly longer recovery period from June, which they will not have in the summer of 2019. Nevertheless, the Bleues climbed back up to third in the world rankings in June 2018.

In the autumn and winter of 2018/19, they faced five non-European opponents, including Australia, Brazil and the USA, three women's teams also in the FIFA Top 10. In France, anticipation for the World Cup grew as the tournament approached, with ticket offices at the Stade Oceane in Le Havre closed against the Americans because the capacity of 22,870 had already been exhausted in advance. Games against Germany, Uruguay, Japan and Denmark followed. In the last week of May, France's World Cup squad took on two Asian opponents, Thailand - France's 55th opponent in their international history - and China, as a final test for the "World Cup emergency" against South Korea. Their performance at the World Cup tournament also decided whether France would be one of only three teams from the UEFA area to take part in the 2020 Olympic Football Tournament in Tokyo. Once again the French, who were eliminated in the quarter-finals, failed to "translate their potential into tangible results for a change". FFF president Le Graët then confirmed that Diacre would remain head coach of the Bleues.

In October 2019, the qualifiers for the European Championship finals in England began, which were originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2021 and were then postponed by a year. In it, the Bleues will face Austria (23rd in the world rankings when the draw was made at the end of February 2019), Serbia (42nd), Kazakhstan (71st) and North Macedonia (121st), a team the French women have never played before. Diacre's first post-World Cup squad included some selective rejuvenation, with one absolute newcomer for each of the goalkeeping, defence and midfield positions. At the same time, however, the coach did not want to do without her most experienced players (Bouhaddi, Thiney, Le Sommer, Henry) for the time being; from the 30-year-old age group, she only left out Bussaglia.
From 2020 onwards, however, it was precisely these women and Wendie Renard who publicly criticised Diacre's "communication style", for example with regard to their permanent or occasional omission from their international line-ups, so much so that even the federation's president felt compelled to intervene and smooth the waters.

The FFF hosted its own four-nation tournament (Tournoi de France) from 4 to 10 March 2020. The aim was to perpetuate the enthusiasm for women's football that had manifested itself in impressive crowds at the 2019 World Cup. However, the event competed with simultaneous tournaments in the USA, Portugal and Cyprus. The SheBelieves Cup, in particular, limited the choice of top-class opponents because the USA, England and Japan were contractually obliged to participate there. The first edition, with matches in Valenciennes (Stade du Hainaut) and Calais (Stade de l'Épopée), featured Brazil, Canada and reigning European champions the Netherlands. By winning the competition, the Bleues moved back up to third in the world rankings.

Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, UEFA cancelled all international fixtures until the summer of 2020, meaning France's four European Championship qualifiers scheduled for April and June also had to be postponed. At the end of May, those four matches were rescheduled for the autumn

The European Championship finals were postponed until July 2022. Some of the national team players, who are also unemployed at the club, then took part in "home school lessons via the internet" at Easter, each with a link to football (Puissance Foot avec les Bleues): Grace Geyoro with a video sequence in French grammar, Marion Torrent in geography, Viviane Asseyi in mathematics and Pauline Peyraud-Magnin in English.

In October 2020, the Austrians held France to a draw, ending a run of 46 French victories in European Championship and World Cup qualifiers that began in 2007. Ahead of the second leg four weeks later - also the "final" for the group win - Corinne Diacre had to compensate for a whole series of cancellations: Gauvin, Le Sommer, Torrent and Asseyi were all missing through injury, while Tounkara went into quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19. The Bleues nevertheless finished their European Championship qualifying group as undisputed group leaders with seven wins and a goal difference of 44-0.

The Bleues were due to face Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, the sixth, tenth and twelfth-placed opponents within UEFA, at the second Tournoi de France in February 2021. However, the tournament was cancelled at short notice and replaced by two friendly matches against the Swiss. However, the federation was able to secure two very strong opponents for April, world No. 6 England and the USA (No. 1), to come to France. The 3-1 win over England came from a team that was without a single Lyon player for the first time in many years. The final match of the season at the Stade de la Meinau against Germany saw spectators admitted for the first time in 15 months, albeit in severely limited numbers with 5,000 seats released.

In the draw for the qualifying groups for the 2023 World Cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand, the French women - fourth in the world rankings at the time - were allocated the following Group I opponents: Wales (ranked 32), Slovenia (ranked 50), Greece (ranked 64), Kazakhstan (ranked 81) and Estonia (ranked 106). The Bleues have played them all in the past (19 in total), failing to win only once, in a 1-1 draw with the Welsh in 1978. The period for these encounters begins in September 2021 - France start with two away games in Greece and Slovenia - and is due to be completed 12 months later.

All players who have been considered for France's senior women's national team since 1971 can be found in the list of French national football players.

Current squad

This includes all players who played at least once in the previous or current season, as well as all players who were called up by the national coach to a senior squad in the current season (2020/21) but did not play. However, this does not include those players who declared their definitive withdrawal from the Bleues during the course of the pre-season (2019/20).

Ranking of entries and scorers

Total

As of 10 June 2021; all players with at least 60 appearances or 10 goals are included. Players still active internationally are highlighted in bold. Players with the same number of appearances are listed in chronological order, while goals are listed in order of efficiency (goals per game).

The goalkeeper with the most 'caps' is Sarah Bouhaddi, having overtaken long-time record-holder Sandrine Roux in September 2013. Corinne Diacre became the first French woman to reach 100 caps in May 2003. Meanwhile, Sandrine Soubeyrand, Sonia Bompastor, Laura Georges, Camille Abily, Élise Bussaglia, Louisa Nécib, Eugénie Le Sommer, Gaëtane Thiney and Sarah Bouhaddi are the ninth women to surpass Lilian Thuram (142 games), the French record international for men.

The first female goal scorer in official international history was Jocelyne Ratignier, who scored a hat-trick in a 4-0 win over the Netherlands in 1971.

At the major tournament finals

World Championships

In the four World Cup tournaments with French participation (2003, 2011, 2015, 2019), Gaëtane Thiney and Eugénie Le Sommer (16 games each) made the most appearances, ahead of Laura Georges (14), followed by Wendie Renard, Élise Bussaglia (13 each), Camille Abily (11), Sarah Bouhaddi, Amandine Henry, Louisa Nécib and Élodie Thomis (10 each), Marie-Laure Delie, Sandrine Soubeyrand (9 each), Sonia Bompastor (8), Amel Majri (7), Kadidiatou Diani and Laure Boulleau (6), Jessica Houara, Laure Lepailleur, Bérangère Sapowicz, Griedge Mbock Bathy, Valérie Gauvin and Delphine Cascarino (5 each). Five French women have made three appearances in the World Cup finals, namely Georges, Renard, Bussaglia, Le Sommer and Thiney.
The most successful French goal scorers are Delie and Le Sommer (5 each), Renard (4), Thomis and Henry (3 each) ahead of Pichon, Thiney and Gauvin, who scored 2 goals each. Georges, Bompastor, Abily, Bussaglia and Nécib
scored once each.

European Championships

The Bleues have played in six consecutive European Championship finals from 1997 to 2017. The record holder in terms of appearances at continental level is Sandrine Soubeyrand, who has taken part in five of these tournaments, appearing in 17 matches. She is followed by Camille Abily (14 appearances), Sarah Bouhaddi, Laura Georges, Élodie Thomis and Eugénie Le Sommer (12 each), Élise Bussaglia (11), Sonia Bompastor, Gaëtane Thiney (10 each), Stéphanie Mugneret-Béghé, Candie Herbert, Marinette Pichon, Louisa Nécib (9 each), Corinne Diacre (8) and Wendie Renard (7).

The most European Championship goals were scored by Pichon and Angélique Roujas (4 each), Abily, Nécib, Le Sommer (3 each), Mugneret-Béghé, Renard and Delie (2 each). Six other women were successful once.

Olympics

The French women also played for Olympic medals in 2012 and 2016. Sarah Bouhaddi, Wendie Renard, Camille Abily, Élise Bussaglia, Louisa Nécib and Élodie Thomis played in all ten of those matches. They were followed by Marie-Laure Delie (9), Eugénie Le Sommer (8), Sonia Bompastor, Corine Franco, Laura Georges, Sandrine Soubeyrand and Gaëtane Thiney with six appearances each.

The goal scorers were Le Sommer (3), Georges, Renard, Nécib, Delie, Thomis (2 each), Abily, Camille Catala, Thiney and Majri (1 each).