Top 5 players of 2025: France Women

2025 has been another frustrating year for France’s senior women’s team. Three more defeats to England- in the Six Nations, in the summer, and again at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, before rounding off the calendar with a numbed loss to New Zealand in the third-place play-off.

The hope — perhaps rather more than the expectation this time — had been for more. But, three years after a troubled World Cup run in New Zealand and eight after their last title of any sort, 2026 and beyond promises to be a little brighter.

New France head coach Francois Ratier takes charge on January 5th 2026, AXA has become title sponsor of the domestic Elite 1 competition, and the FFR is taking a bigger step towards professionalism than ever before.

As the women’s game in France looks to what it hopes will be a brighter future, here’s a rundown of the five best Bleues’ sisters of 2025.

Joanna Grisez (Stade Bordelais)
Scorer of the Try of the Six Nations, 80m breaker of Irish Rugby World Cup quarter-final hearts, four tries in England, on the opposite wing to breakout star Braxton Sorensen-McGee in the tournament’s Dream Team, 12 tries in her 13 Tests, and winner of Midi Olympique’s Best Female Player award. It’s been quite a 2025 for the winger.

But, a competitor above all else, Grisez wants more. She’s now giving centre a bit of a run as Stade Bordelais look for a fourth domestic AXA Elite 1 title in as many seasons. And she wants international titles, too.

A decade ago, rugby was almost a coin-toss. She played tennis as a child, and was toying with MMA and rugby at university when she tried out for Bobigny a decade ago on the recommendation of a tutor. It could have ended after the 2024 Paris Olympics, when she posted on social media that she was ‘dead inside’ after Les Bleues’ elimination in the quarter-finals. Defenders may not always agree, but rugby should be grateful Grisez has rediscovered her mojo.

Morgane Bourgeois (Stade Bordelais)
Another player Irish fans won’t remember fondly from the Rugby World Cup quarter-final, the boot of Bourgeois kept France in a game they had no right to be in, and for long enough that tries for Charlotte Escudero and Grisez still counted.

But that was no one-match wonder for the Stade Bordelais’ fullback, who started her rugby career at 10 before switching permanently to full back two years ago. Comparisons with Thomas Ramos may be welcomed — she is as accurate off the tee and has a similar instinct for the try line.

She is a big fan of her counterpart in the men’s France squad, as coach Francois Ratier discovered when he tried to play her on the wing. “I mentioned Ange Capuozzo,” the imminent France women’s team head coach said at the time, “she replied she was more of a Thomas Ramos”.

Like Ramos, she’s collecting titles. She already has three domestic league winners’ medals — but, like Grisez, she has her eyes on international glory, too.

Pauline Bourdon Sansus (Stade Toulousain)
Second only to living legend Portia Woodman-Wickliffe who was placed at number one on RugbyPass’ Top 50 Women’s Players list, France scrum-half Bourdon Sansus is the catalyst of pretty much everything in attack for Les Bleues — and, according to French daily morning newspaper Le Figaro, has ‘revolutionised the French team’s game’.

Certainly, it’s a truth universally accepted that there’s a France team with Bourdon Sansus, and one without her.

After sitting out August’s Rugby World Cup warm-up against England and Les Bleues’ tournament opener against Italy as she served a two-game ban for questioning the standard of refereeing in the final of France’s domestic Elite 1 competition, she pulled the strings with back-to-back player-of-the-match performances against Brazil and South Africa, and was as responsible as try-scoring player-of-the-match Escudero for their quarter-final comeback win over Ireland.

Léa Champon (FC Grenoble Amazones)
Pundits will routinely warn you about France’s big ball carriers: Madoussou Fall Raclot, Manae and Teani Feleu, and the aforementioned Escudero — the never-less-than-majestic Fall Raclot was named high up in the RugbyPass Top 50 list.

Rather fewer might mention Léa Champon. But there’s a reason the athletic backrow, who can also fill in at centre, has featured in every one of France’s 12 internationals in 2025, was one of just three French players to start every pool match in the Rugby World Cup, and was second only to centre Vernier in terms of minutes on World Cup pitches.

Her relative anonymity compared to those bigger, better-known players around her is Champon’s secret weapon. Most of the time, no one notices the Amazone as she discreetly goes about her backrow business. Then, suddenly, she’ll pop up where you don’t realise she could be, couldn’t imagine she would be, doing what you didn’t expect her to do.

She’s so dangerous, so effective because you don’t see her. Until you do. And, by then, it’s too late.

Gabrielle Vernier (Blagnac)
A structural engineer who breaks opposition lines, much has been made of Vernier’s small stature-big tackles defensive game.

Maybe it’s time to end all that, though, and admire the midfield general for her demonstrated ability, and demonstrable rugby smarts, rather than being surprised by it because she’s not as big as those around her.

As well as stopping attacks in their tracks with a well-timed tackle, she’s developed a decisive instinct in attack. Increasingly, she breaks lines because she’s in the right place at the right time. And she’s an undoubted leader for both the France team and for her club, Blagnac.