WXV Global Series 2026 review: France

Technical shortcomings and tactical naivety. That’s what cost France in New Zealand. That’s what has cost a rebuilding France since the beginning of 2026 according to François Ratier, as his first year as head coach of Les Bleues slows to a halt.

Les Bleues record book for 2026 reads 11 matches played, 296 points scored and 299 conceded, with six wins – against Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia and Canada – and five defeats, including four in as many matches against New Zealand, and another one to England.

Mixed with work-ons is probably the fairest assessment of 2026 for France. Just like 2025. And 2024. And every year back to their last title, the 2018 Women’s Six Nations. A few moments of brilliance – the win over Canada in La Rochelle was one; Pauline Bourdon Sansus’ officially recognised Try of the Year against England another; Pauline Barrat’s thoroughly impressive early international outings before another serious knee injury – but rather more near-misses, might-have-beens, and frustrations.

The three-defeat New Zealand leg of France’s WXV Global Series campaign shifted the pointer heavily towards the frustration side of the dial. Ratier recognised as much.

“[They were] three different matches,” he told French sports daily L’Equipe. “The first [an 81-12 defeat] was obviously a heavy blow, but we got over it.

“In the second [31-12], we saw a fightback, a real realisation of what we’re capable of, with some interesting strategic elements starting to fall into place. And the third [36-7] was more frustrating because we had chances again.

“We have this tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot through a lack of tactical and strategic leadership.”

There’s no denying they stared Black Ferns squarely in the eye in Lyon in their opening WXV Global Series outing, and did so again for an hour in the second match in New Zealand. But, there’s also no denying they fell apart late-on in Whangarei, shipping three tries in the final 15 minutes. And they were never in the hunt after failing to score early on in Christchurch.

This remains the never-ending story for Les Bleues. Look to the hour-mark of that second match in New Zealand, when France, 14-12 down, launched repeated assaults on the Black Ferns’ line only – when they did finally cross – to be held up. Or the very early exchanges of the final game, when the same thing happened.

No one is about to reductively suggest either result would have been different had those tries been scored, merely that the shape of the game that followed would have been different.

“As coaches, we bear some of the blame for the fact that we were unable to close out this sort of match,” Ratier admitted. “But the players also need to take responsibility.”

It seems they are. Fly-half Carla Arbez, who succeeded Joanna Grisez as the recipient of Midi Olympique’s Golden ‘Oscar’ for 2026, told the newspaper: “We didn’t really know how to approach the girls as they left the pitch [after the 81-12 loss in Hamilton], or how to handle the video debrief…

“But the staff really did a great job. They didn’t give us a dressing-down. Instead, they went back to basics and tried to help us with the strategic and tactical aspects, to understand where we had gone wrong and how to avoid going wrong in those moments. I think we did that well in the second match.”

Which made the third Test performance in Christchurch that much worse. “We’re making matches harder for ourselves,” Arbez admitted, “with our inefficiency in the scoring zone. If we scored every time we entered our opponents’ 22… things wouldn’t be the same for them mentally, or for us.”

Scoring every time is an impossible dream for even the maddest attack coaches, but the image Arbez paints is clear. France’s inability to score, their panic in the red zone – and the inevitable offload too far that it causes – is a weak point opponents will revel in. She knows it, the staff know it. It can be corrected.

But it takes time. “There’s still a lot of work to do for the Six Nations,” Arbez said, “and for the years to come.”

The ‘work’ to which Arbez refers goes right back to the basics. As Ratier told L’Equipe: “We identified [a] technical divide as soon as we arrived. That’s why we maintain basic skills like passing in training. However, you don’t do the most passing in training with the national team. There are the youth teams, the academies, the clubs…

“I’ve been saying the same thing since January – we lack the basic high-pressure skills we encounter in international matches.”

The nature of international selection – the squad isn’t due to gather again until next year – means that fundamental rugby skills have to be in the wheelhouse of the clubs and the players.

“This skills gap isn’t new,” Ratier said. “There are areas of training that are less fun to work on, like repeating technical skills. We don’t focus on that as much in France – but we have to because the skills gap could widen even further.”

France had taken a relatively inexperienced squad to New Zealand for the October tests. But Ratier wasn’t about to hide behind that.

“This isn’t a question of inexperience,” he said after that third and final defeat on tour. “If we look at our players at nine [captain, Alexandra Chambon], 10 [Arbez] and 15 [Émilie Boulard], they’re not players with just two caps. We’ll be having these discussions with the squad during the debrief.

It’s true, however, that Ratier has taken the opportunity in what has been a relatively calm and long honeymoon period for the national side’s new coaching staff to set about building depth in the France set-up.

Almost every time a French squad has been selected, the number of uncapped players has been noteworthy. That Ratier is keen to mark his territory, his tenure, as France coach goes without saying. No measure is clearer than his expansion of Les Bleues squad and the staff – 46 different players turned out for France over the 11 matches of 2026.

“We’re at the beginning of a cycle,” Ratier insisted, “we have to take that into account. What I’m most proud of is having been able to expand the French squad. When we took over in February, we had about 20 players under contract, after the turnover that followed the World Cup.

“You always have to increase depth, and to do that, we had to go to the clubs, evaluated the players at Elite level, and then put them on the international stage.

“There are gaps, that’s no secret. We’re able to measure them, in speed, impact, endurance, power. And now, they’re experiencing it. Not always in a pleasant way, we’ve seen, but it’s part of the process.”

He won’t have that excuse much longer. The first year of the Ratier era is done. It could have been better – it could have been worse. He, his staff and his players knows what the work-ons are, and he’s already set the Women’s Six Nations 2027 as a key save point in the overarching schedule on which he was hired in the first place.

He’s basically insisting on more time, saying that the groundwork he’s laying now will be foundational to French success further down the line, specifically at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2029.