Division 1 Féminine · History

The first championship of the modern era was decided on 31 May 1975, when Stade de Reims beat Orléans in the final. The French Football Federation (FFF) had revived a national women’s league in 1974, more than four decades after the original competition, set up in 1919 by the women’s sports federation FSFSF, faded away in the early 1930s. Reims’s semi-final against Rouen that spring was the first women’s football match shown live on French television. The league that began that season, known for decades as Division 1 Féminine, has been called the Première Ligue since 2024.

Regional qualifiers and group stages (1974-1992)

For its first eighteen seasons the championship was not a single league. Clubs came through regional competitions, then met in groups before a finals phase that settled the title. Reims led the way early on, winning in 1975, 1976 and 1977, then again in 1980 and 1982, for five titles in all. AS Étrœungt interrupted them with championships in 1978, 1979 and 1981. In the 1980s VGA Saint-Maur, from the Paris suburbs, took over: champions in 1983, four times in a row from 1985 to 1988 and once more in 1990, six titles in total. ASJ Soyaux (1984) and Saint-Brieuc (1989), listed in the records as a forerunner of Guingamp, won one each.

A twelve-club national league (1992-2006)

In 1992 the format switched to a single national league of 12 clubs playing each other home and away, under the name National 1A; it became Division 1 in 2002. The 1990s were shared out. FC Lyon won in 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1998, while Juvisy, the predecessor of Paris FC in the records, took the titles of 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1997. Toulouse then won four in a row between 1999 and 2002. Juvisy added a fifth title in 2003 and a sixth in 2006, either side of Montpellier’s back-to-back championships in 2004 and 2005. From 2001 to 2004 a playoff phase decided the champion, before the federation returned to a straight league table.

Olympique Lyonnais and fourteen straight titles (2007-2020)

Olympique Lyonnais won the 2006-07 season and did not let go of the trophy until 2020. That run of fourteen consecutive championships, from 2007 to 2020, is the longest the competition has recorded. Strikers such as Lotta Schelin and Ada Hegerberg were among the league’s top scorers during those years. In 2019 the chemical company Arkema became the first title sponsor of the league.

Paris Saint-Germain end the run (2021)

The 2020-21 season brought Lyon’s streak to an end. Paris Saint-Germain finished top and won their first league title, still the only one in the club’s records. From 2021-22 the top three clubs qualified for the Women’s Champions League. Lyon won the title back in 2022 and kept it in 2023.

Playoffs and the Première Ligue (2023-2026)

The 2023-24 season introduced playoffs for the top four, with semi-finals and a final. Lyon beat PSG 2-1 in the first of those finals on 17 May 2024, with goals from Delphine Cascarino and Tabitha Chawinga. A few weeks earlier, on 29 April 2024, the new name Arkema Première Ligue had been unveiled, and from the 2024-25 season the competition moved from the FFF to a new body, the Ligue féminine de football professionnel (LFFP). The bottom two clubs are relegated to the Seconde Ligue. On 16 May 2025 Lyon beat PSG again in the final, 3-0, with goals from Melchie Dumornay, Kadidiatou Diani and Wendie Renard, for an 18th title. On 29 May 2026 the club, by then playing as OL Lyonnes, beat Paris FC 5-0 in the final, Dumornay scoring a hat-trick and Chawinga twice, to win its 19th French championship, a record for the competition.