France: Fact file

Form guide

Inspired by Antoine Dupont, the France men's team were crowned SVNS 2024 Champions at the inaugural Grand Final in Madrid and will go into their home Olympic Games full of confidence after a stunning 19-5 victory over League Winners Argentina in the season finale. Having broken their 19-year cup drought earlier in the season in Vancouver, France scored two second-half tries to seal the win against Los Pumas Sevens.

France's women came close to making it the perfect end to the season but came up just short in Madrid's Grand Final, losing the end-of-season gold medal match to Australia. With two third-place finishes and two second-place finishes out of the seven regular season events, Les Bleues Sevens finished a very creditable third in the SVNS standings, behind New Zealand and Australia but ahead of other Olympic contenders such as USA, Canada, Fiji, Ireland and Great Britain. 

Star dust

Sevens commentator and reporter Rob Vickerman says: "While several sevens stalwarts provided the backbone to a best-ever season, there is no denying that Antoine Dupont's presence and contribution made a colossal difference to France. Dubbed the 'best player in the world', he proved it again in the shorter form.

"In the women's squad, Séraphine Okemba has continued to be one of the best all-round stars in sevens, while also releasing her debut single."

Road to Paris 2024

France's men's and women's teams booked their places at Paris 2024 courtesy of being the host nation.

Previous Olympics

While France's men failed to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Games (played in 2021), the country's women performed heroically to claim silver and the country's first rugby sevens Olympic medal. Having topped their pool with wins against Fiji, Canada and Brazil, France beat China in the quarter-finals and Great Britain in the semi-finals before losing to New Zealand 26-12 in the gold medal match.

Four years earlier, France's teams both came through the European qualifying route to book their places at Rio 2016, and both were knocked out at the quarter-final stage, the women's team by Canada and the men by an in-form Japan.

France played in the first ever men’s and women’s rugby sevens matches at an Olympics and scored the first tries in both competitions.