2026 WXV Global Series preview: France

France head coach Francois Ratier is taking the WXV Global Series seriously. The tight five forwards he selected teamed up in Capbreton in mid-August for a set piece-dedicated three-day camp.

At the same time, several of Les Bleues’ backs were involved in the opening leg of the domestic SuperSevens tournament in nearby Biarritz. Ratier shuttled between the two locations, keeping a close eye on the players he has called up for the autumn’s six-match international series.

They all gathered at the FFR’s Marcoussis headquarters at the end of August for a full preparation camp ahead of their opening match against New Zealand in Lyon on September 12.

This is the activity and planning of a serious coach. But his goal is not this year’s WXV Global Series. Ratier’s looking much further ahead. The immediate future matters – and he will want his players to compete – but his ultimate target is three years and half a world away from where his squad have been in August 2026.

Recent form

The WXV is the second competition run for new-look post-Women’s Rugby World Cup disappointment, line-in-the-sand France.

The new head coach appointed last November, his new staff who shipped up at the Marcoussis in January, a youthful squad who met for the first time in February, and the new and developing philosophy are still bedding in.

Basically, Les Bleues are five matches into the 11 of year one of a three-year rebuild, leading up to what French rugby bosses intend to be a serious Women’s Rugby World Cup challenge in Australia in 2029. All roads lead there for head coach Ratier, his staff, and his squads.

Early indications are promising. France boasted the best defence in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations earlier this year, and a better tailored attack of constant movement and fitness, rather than the direct fugue rugby of the past few years.

The players have been impressed with the gameplan, and their ability to implement it.

“We were able to express our style of rugby very well – we showed that throughout the tournament,” Manaé Feleu, who will miss the WXV Global Series as she’s studying for medical exams, said minutes after France’s Six Nations finale ended in defeat to England.

French confidence grew visibly as the tournament progressed.

“We have a better project, we’re happy to play this kind of rugby,” scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus added. “I didn’t expect us to be able to do this in eight weeks.”

Biggest Tests

France’s WXV Global Series schedule this year could have been tougher – but only if it included all-conquering England, who racked up their 18th win in a row over Les Bleues back in May, on their fixture list.

As it is, Ratier’s side face two of the three sides above them in World Rugby’s rankings in their six outings over the globe-trotting tournament’s seven-week calendar.

Les Bleues face Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 finalists Canada, third on the list of the world’s best, and play second-placed side New Zealand – who comfortably beat them in the bronze final in England last September – four times.

They also meet another side in heavy rebuild mode, Women’s Rugby World Cup 2029 host nation Australia, in Provence.

The good news is that this is exactly the challenge France need and boss Ratier wants in his second milestone competition on the long and winding road to the next edition of the quadrennial tournament in three years.

Players to watch

Morgane Bourgeois – Women’s Six Nations breakthrough player Pauline Barrat suffered her third serious knee injury in five years at the end of the French AXA Elite 1 season, and has been sidelined until early 2027.

Barrat’s absence might give the Bordeaux 15 a chance to reclaim the jersey that she had lost to the Toulouse player at the start of the 2026 Women’s Six Nations.

Ratier has options at full-back. If he wants to keep the pace he had with Barrat, he could switch Romagnat’s Anais Grando to her preferred position, having successfully repositioned her out wide during the Women’s Six Nations.

However, Bourgeois offers consistency and solidity – and a powerful and accurate boot – that he can’t ignore. She’s not exactly a slouch either.

Teani Feleu – Playing for France in her favoured midfield position, at last, rather than the back-row, Feleu showed how dangerous she can be with ball in hand as she blitzed holes in Irish, Scottish and English defences in the 2026 Women’s Six Nations, after being recalled to the squad following Joanna Grisez’s injury in the opening match, and returning to the starting line-up when Gabrielle Vernier’s tournament ended in the second.

Vernier is back, and Feleu faces competition for a starting shirt from the impressive Aubane Rousset, who made her France debut in the tournament, but France have a coveted hybrid player of rare talent in the younger Feleu sister.

Prediction

Performance and development aren’t words that will fill France fans’ hearts with excitement heading into this autumn’s WXV Global Series.

But the prime directive for France is to build on the overall improvement seen and experienced in the Women’s Six Nations, while learning from and correcting some of their more avoidable errors, particularly those made in the decisive loss to England.

After all, New Zealand and Canada have it in them to punish mistakes almost as severely as John Mitchell’s Red Roses’ side did back in May.

Those errors against England, at least, were not of execution, or ability, but mainly of impatience and an over-eagerness to keep the ball alive against more powerful opposition, when one more ruck and a calmer approach would have been more effective.

The players acknowledged as much after the England game.

Winger Léa Murie admitted, “We got a bit carried away. We need to be more selective.”

No one should expect a France clean sweep, or anything close, this year. But wins at home, and performances to build on in the away legs in Hamilton, Whangerei, and Christchurch are within Les Bleues’ wheelhouse.