A love of sports is hardly unique to France. Yet the surprising diversity of sports in France with officially registered players offers a telling insight into French hobbies and interests.
64% of people in France claim to participate in a sport at least weekly, according to a 2017 survey. Helpfully, the leading sporting organisations in France publish data about their registered participants.
The data comes with a flashing neon disclaimer as there is sometimes a big gap between the most played and the most-watched sports in France. Not to mention many people play sports outside official federations. Nonetheless, the figures roughly reflect sporting interests, so we’ll leverage them to shine a light on sporting culture in France.
For those who like to know where their stats are from, this post uses figures published by the ministère des sports in 2018. Covid restrictions limited team sports activity in 2020-21, so more recent data may paint a different, albeit less reliable, picture of ongoing participation levels in France.
The Top 8 sports played in France
Football (soccer) in France
Registered participants: 2 109 000
Football is the one sport with no disconnect between participation and audience numbers. It is far and away the most popular sport in France, which may be the single least surprising thing you’ll read today.
The French national Ligue 1 is the fifth wealthiest league after England, Germany, Spain, and Italy.
The national team Les Bleus (The Blues, owing to the colour of their kit) have bagged two world cups and two European championships. At the time of writing, they are the reigning world champions. It’s safe to say that football is big news in France.
France has a highly developed amateur set-up, which accounts for the high player numbers. It also partly explains how they outperform expectations on the world stage.
If you ever need a conversation starter in France, football is a reliable icebreaker.
Tennis
Registered participants: 986,000
It is unsurprising that a sport accessible to all age groups and fitness levels is among the most popular sports in France.
With tennis mostly limited to premium TV channels, it is hard to gauge spectator interest. But with one of the four annual Grand Chelem (grand slam) events at Roland Garros in Paris drawing in 38,436 daily spectators, it clearly has a sizeable fanbase in France.
France’s most successful modern player is Amélie Mauresmo, with two grand slam titles to her name (Wimbledon and Melbourne).
However, France’s most famous tennis player played long ago. René Lacoste, whose heyday was in the 1920s, was known as ‘le crocodile’. If you haven’t heard of him, you might know his tennis shirt and the famous crocodile logo, now the signature item of a worldwide clothing brand. Clearly a sharp mind on and off the court.
L’Équitation (horse riding)
Registered participants: 628,000
Considering the relatively high barrier to participation, seeing equestrianism riding so high on a list of popular sports in France is unexpected.
Over 250 venues in France host professional horse racing and trotting (trot). More than half the racecourses and hippodromes in Europe are French. While the most valuable horserace in Europe, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, takes place at Longchamps in Paris every October, drawing in 60,000 spectators.
But despite these impressive numbers, horse racing remains a mostly amateur pastime in France. It is also the sport with the highest ratio of female participants (over 83%). With an extensive network of public stables and open-access allées cavalières (bridleways), equitation looks set to remain one of the most popular sports in France.
Judo
Registered participants: 547,000
Judo is perhaps the first unexpected entry on a roundup of the most popular sports in France.
Recent interest in the sport can partly be attributed to the nationwide love for judoka Teddy Riner, a three-time Olympic gold medallist and an unsurpassed 10-time world champion. Teddy consistently tops polls of the most respected sports star in France.
But he wouldn’t be where he is today without a widespread interest in Judo across France, evidenced by a huge network of dojos. France is planning to create another 1,000 dojos by 2024. Add in the figures for karate and similar sports (253,000), there is evidently a huge appetite for martial arts in France.
Handball in France
Registered participants: 547,000
Although played in many countries (183 according to one national federation), handball remains a niche sport outside Europe. Yet it is unquestionably one of the most popular sports in France.
The sport’s popularity is aided in no small part by the performance of the national teams. Both Les Bleus (men’s team) and Les Bleues (women’s team) are unrivalled world-beaters, holding numerous records and a stack of world titles and Olympic gold medals.
A fast and furious sport preferred by younger age groups, handball looks set to remain one of the most beloved sports in France.
Basket-ball (basketball)
Registered participants: 525,000
You may be surprised to learn that basketball, that all-American activity, is one of the most popular sports in France.
The registered numbers don’t tell the whole story. Basket, as it commonly called, is played more on public courts all across France. Travel through any village in France and you will likely see a well-maintained basketball court. Which is why many claim basketball is the second most popular sport in France and the most in-demand team sport for women.
France is also home to a professional basketball league that draws crowds topping 2,000 spectators for the biggest Nationale 1 matches.
Unfortunately for French spectators, the very best French basketball players follow the dollar and join the NBA, like national stars Tony Parker and Rudy Gobert did. Luckily for the casual fans, the best French players return for international events, which has helped France win 3 silver medals at the Summer Olympics.
Golf
Registered participants: 413,000
Golf is a sport with an extraordinary level of engagement internationally and, inevitably, one of the most popular sports in France.
Over 700 golf clubs in France illustrate how this is one of the fastest-growing sports in France (just 20,000 players were registered in 1970). France is also home to the oldest golf tournament on the European continent, the Open de France.
Still a male-dominated sport, female participation is also growing with women making up around 30% of players in France today.
Rugby Union in France
Registered participants: 335,000
Judging by spectator numbers and presence on sports pages, you might expect rugby to appear higher in the list of most played sports in France. But rugby union is a full-contact sport normally played with 30 players on the pitch, complicating participation. A non-contact version (touch rugby), the 7-a-side game, and rugby league are popular, but not on the scale of rugby union.
The bastions of French rugby union are in the south, where the game can eclipse football for igniting local passions. Some of the best teams in Europe are found there, including Toulouse and Toulon. Toulouse holds the most European titles in history with 5 wins, although Toulon is not far behind with 3 winning trophies.
On the national stage, France – also known as Les Bleus – have yet to snatch victory in a world cup, despite reaching three finals. Yet in a sport dominated by les anglo-saxons, France is one of the top-performing teams. Only England have won more Five/Six Nations titles (the annual European rugby tournament pitting the British home nations of England, Wales, Scotland, along with Ireland and Italy, against France).
The only sport other than football that can fill the 80,000+ capacity Stade de France, rugby arguably warrants a higher position on a list of popular sports in France. With France hosting the World Cup in 2023 and their national team showing signs of hitting form at just the right time, those numbers may be set to grow.
Other high-participation sports in France
The eight sports we’ve already covered are the most played and talked about sports in France. Yet many other sports attract significant player numbers.
Athletics, gymnastics, and swimming all make the 300,000+ participants club. With Paris hosting the Olympics in 2024, those numbers are sure to increase.
La pétanque
The enduring appeal of the distinctively gallic sport la pétanque cannot be understated. It is the one truly French sport with widespread engagement.
The registered number of pétanque players in 2017 was 301,000. The number of unregistered players must number in the millions, judging by the frequency that parking lots and alleyways transform into makeshift boulodromes during the summer. You never have to look far for a group of friends leisurely whiling the afternoon away with their boules, especially as many parks have boulodromes.
Cycling
Finally, if there is one sporting event France is known for it is the Tour de France. The annual cycling event that snakes around the country, taking in the best of the French countryside.
Arguably, cycling should top a list of popular sports in France. The government reports that 9 million people regularly cycle in France. However, only 116,000 registered with federations in 2017.
Those federation figures are almost certainly illusory. Many bikers meet in small, unofficial groups. Few car journeys can be made in France on weekends without encountering large groups of spandex-wearing cyclistes.
Regardless of debates about the number of competitive cyclists, we know the Tour de France is the single most-watched sporting event on French tv. And also among the most viewed sporting events in the world, even if the numbers are difficult to compare.
There is undoubtedly an insatiable appetite for a diverse set of sports in France. With the country hosting some of the biggest sporting tournaments in the world in the next few years, the already bulging national trophy cabinet might need to expand along with the sporting federations of France.
