On the international stage and domestically, France have always been one of the super-powers of world football. It was Les Bleus who scored the very first World Cup goal. Stade de Reims meanwhile appeared in the inaugural European Cup final, an event held at the Parc des Princes, Paris.
Down the years too this is a nation that has gifted the planet with some extraordinary footballers, from Just Fontaine to Raymond Kopa; Platini to Zidane.
Moreover, perhaps due to its close proximity to England – the ‘home of football’ – theirs is a history that goes right back. The first recorded football club emerged in 1864 courtesy of a group of Englishmen organising a kickabout for the weekends.
The football betting was presumably confusing what with the club in question splitting their players up to make two sides.
When determining who are the five biggest clubs currently operating in Ligue 1, however, we must start our story in 1932, because it was then when the league structure in France turned professional.
During those nascent years we find that Marseille were often prominent but so too were clubs that are sadly no longer around. The league’s first champions Olympique Lillois is one. Sete another. Indeed, of the 20 inaugural clubs in the National – Ligue 1’s predecessor – five are now extinct and five presently play at a very low level.
Biggest Clubs In French Football:
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Paris Saint-Germain
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Olympique de Marseille
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Saint Etienne
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Olympique Lyonnais
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AS Monaco
It is in the immediate years following the end of World War II when more familiar names begin to come to the fore. Lille dominated the Forties. Nice had their moments in the Fifties, as did Nantes in the Sixties. Bordeaux finished in the top two on multiple occasions in the Eighties.
That none of these sides are included below is a testament to a trait the French hold extremely dear, it being drafted into its constitution. For this is an egalitarian league bereft of a Bayern or Barcelona.
Ten French clubs have ultimately topped the top-flight on four or more occasions.
5) AS Monaco
At the risk of insulting an entire principality, Monaco are such a strange club.
Once a decade they forge a fabulous team that goes on to win a title and a Coupe de France before seeing that collective break up for all manner of reasons, leading to another spell in the relative wilderness.
This has been going on since the early Sixties when they first emerged as a force to be reckoned with.
The perfect example concerning this is their brilliant 2016/17 side that won Ligue 1 by 12 clear points and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.
It was a team bolstered in midfield by Tiemoue Bakayoko, who allowed Bernardo Silva, Joao Moutinho and Thomas Lemar to run amok. Up front there was Radamel Falcao partnered by a teenage Kylian Mbappe.
Twelve months later so many of these superb talents were gone, leaving Monaco a cash-rich husk in needed of rebuilding itself. It is a pattern that persists across their history.
4) Olympique Lyonnais
Otherwise known as simply ‘Lyon’, this mainstay of the French top-flight was founded in 1950, an off-shoot of a club that focused on several amateur sports, its football division rarely prioritised.
Four years into their existence Les Gones – ‘The Kids’ – were promoted to Ligue 1 and soon after they enjoyed moderate success, propelled into the elite by the goals of their legendary forward Fleury Di Nallo. A league title though continued to elude them.
That all changed post-millennium and emphatically so, the club based in France’s second largest city outstripping their peers on a seasonal basis.
With a wealthy owner at the helm intent on transforming their fortunes, Lyon admirably eschewed the temptation to spend big on established superstars, instead concentrating on their scouting system and youth set-up. This they did to exceedingly good effect.
Across the next decade, Michael Essien, Florent Malouda, Juninho, and Karim Benzema became first-time regulars. In that period, Lyon won the league for seven years running, additionally reaching the last four of the Champions League.
They repeated the latter feat in 2020 and this modern phenomenon will likely be here for the long-term. Forbes estimate them as the 13th richest club in the world.
3) Saint Etienne
It was across the Sixties and Seventies when Les Verts were at their peak, winning eight of their ten league titles in this golden period.
With a team locked down by Osvaldo Piazza and Christian Lopez in defence and illuminated by the enigmatic talents of Johnny Rep and Dominique Rocheteau, they didn’t only boss the landscape of French football but made their mark on the continent, reaching the European Cup final in 1976.
That loss to Bayern has gone down in the annals of the sport, referred to as ‘Les Poteaux Carres’ (The Square Posts) after a succession of Saint Etienne players hit the woodwork only to see the Germany giants sucker-punch them late on.
Held at Hampden Park, a venue that persisted with old-fashioned wooden goalposts, the feeling is that Les Verts would have won that night had the game took place anywhere else. A legion of French supporters left Scotland in tears.
Whether it’s the green kit, their name being adopted by an indie band, or the fact that Saint Etienne regularly appeared on British TV screens in an era when foreign sides largely remained mysterious entities, this is a club that has gained a cult status in modern times.
That is small consolation for becoming a yo-yo side in the 21st century.
2) Olympique de Marseille
Les Phoceens have the history, no question about that, the only club on this list to have won the league prior to every participant turning professional.
They are also the only French team to have won the European Cup/Champions League, doing so in 1993 and that just two years after finishing runner-up.
Regrettably that era will now forever be associated with bribery and scandal, it later emerging that match-fixing and financial chicanery were part of the play-book of then-president Bernard Tapie.
That of course is to take nothing away from the sheer quality of personnel who lit up the south coast from the mid-Eighties to the early-Nineties.
There was Chris Waddle magnificent on the wing, feeding Jean-Pierre Papin, while Eric Cantona and Enzo Francescoli performed their magic. At the back, Marcel Desailly and Basile Boli were a study in impenetrability.
And that ultimately is the greatest shame about this tainted zenith for a club that has won the league ten times and finished runner-up a record 14 times.
Because what’s the betting this wonderful collection of players wouldn’t have won the lot anyway, without the need of malfeasance.
1) Paris Saint-Germain
Founded in 1970 from the merger of Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain, PSG won the league title in the Eighties and once again in the Nineties. There follows a fallow period up to 2013 whereupon Les Parisiens have topped the pile 11 times in 13 seasons.
The reason for such sudden domination is clear and unequivocal, a takeover by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011 instantly garnering the club with untold riches, but it should be noted that PSG have had wealthy backers before.
In 1991, the television giant Canal+ wiped out the club’s huge debts and serviced a spending spree that brought George Weah to the French capital.
All of that pales though to their expenditure in recent years, with Neymar purchased for a world record fee of €222m in 2017 and Kylian Mbappe swiftly following through the door to the tune of €180m.
In 2012 the arrival of Zlatan Ibrahimovic was a statement that PSG were now one of the major players in world football and seeing kids wearing their shirt on English high streets is a reflection of that.
After waving goodbye to Neymar, Mbappe, and Lionel Messi, Luis Enrique led a well-oiled PSG team to the club's second Champions League final in 2025.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
