Premiere Ligue Feminine
Written by Calli Mingopoulos
History
The Première Ligue is France’s highest tier of professional women’s soccer. Previously known as Division 1 Féminine or D1 Arkema (it rebranded this past off-season), the league started in 1975 and is organized by the French Football Federation (FFF). However, it was not fully professionalized until the 2009/10 season, and even so, investment among clubs varies.
By far its most successful club is the current titleholder Olympique Lyonnais. The seventeen-time winners rattled off a record fourteen-straight titles from 2007-20 and another three from 2021-24. Still, Paris Saint-Germain is their biggest rival, often pushing them to the brink, and nicked the league championship from them in the 2020/21 season. The fight for third and fourth tends to be more competitive with Paris FC, Fleury, Bordeaux and Montpellier all finishing as the “best of the rest” in recent years. The Première Ligue is currently ranked as the best women’s league in Europe, an honour it has held since 2018/19. This is largely driven by OL and PSG’s UEFA Women’s Champions League success; OL has won the tournament a record eight times while PSG are a perennial knock-out round team.
Format
The league features 12 teams with each team playing one other twice– once at home and once away. To increase the league’s competitiveness, the Première Ligue adopted an end-of-season play-off format last year. Now, the top four regular season finishers play single-match elimination games where 1st plays 4th and 2nd plays 3rd. The winners of the semi-finals then square off for the Trophée des Championnes a week later. The two last-place teams get relegated to the Seconde Ligue.
Three teams qualify for UWCL; the first-place regular season and play-off winning teams automatically qualify for the group stages while the second-place regular season team qualifies for the UWCL preliminary round.
Another trophy up for grabs is the Coupe de France Fèminine. It’s given to the winner of the season-long cup tournament for all professional and non-professional women’s teams in France.
Canadians in France
The Première Ligue has been home to some of Canada’s biggest stars– such as Vanessa Gilles, Kadeisha Buchanan, Jordyn Huitema and Ashley Lawrence– but is also a great landing spot for our developing talent. Currently, 12 Canadians ply their trade in France’s top division.
AS Saint-Étienne (ASSE) has the most Canadians with Alex Lamontagne, Sarah Stratigakis, Cameroonian/Canadian dual-national Easther Mayi Kith and Haitian/Canadian dual-national Amandine Pierre-Louise. Alex Lamontagne (2 international caps), a former Calgary Foothills WFC player, joined ASSE a season ago and has featured regularly on the squad. Sarah Stratigakis (5 caps, 1 goal), meanwhile. is hoping for a bounce-back season at her new club after a short stint in Bristol City last year and potentially a return to the CANXNT.
Kayza Massey is an up-and-coming goalkeeper from Western Virginia University who we recently profiled for our “Next Pros” series. This season with Stade de Reims will be the first full one of their professional career, but they were a frequent youth national team call-up and the Big12 Goalkeeper of the Year, so we have high hopes for this next stage for them. Kayla Adamek recently joined Massey at Reims, the Ottawa born attacker continuing her journey across Europe (Sweden, Spain, Serbia, and now France). Adamek suits up for the Polish national team on the international stage.
Emily Burns (no relation to Utah Royals player, Zoe Burns) at FC Nantes is another Canadian keeper to keep an eye on. This will be her second season with the club, but her fourth in the France, with earlier stops in ASSE and Dijon FCO. The former MacEwan Griffon was the standout goalie in the Seconde Lique last season, picking up the GKOTY award.
Latifah Abdu (1 cap) is a 22-year-old forward who has played professionally in France since she was 18. She currently plays for EA Guingamp after signing with them this past offseason, but former stops include Mets, Strasbourg and Dijon. Her last call-up came in December 2023, but a breakout season for the striker, who’s already scored nearly a goal every other game while in France, may earn her another look.
Elisabeth Tsé is another young Canadian looking to turn heads in France. While the 21-year-old from Quebec has not been called into a senior CANXNT camp yet (only U17 and U20 ones), she features regularly for Le Havre AC and recently extended her contract to stay with the club through 2027. This could be her breakout year if the defender can build off her past solid performances over the past 1.5 seasons.
Marie Levasseur (10 caps) is entering her second season with Montpellier and her fourth in France. The 27-year-old left-back has not played for the CANXNT since 2022 but a strong season could put her back in the conversation as an experienced depth player.
Vanessa Gilles is France's only current CANXNT player and is entering her third season with Olympique Lyonnais. We could wax poetically about why you should watch her, but if you’ve seen her play for the National Team we’d probably be preaching to the choir.
Last but not least, Pilar Khoury laces up her boots for another season in the French league, making it her 9th total. The 30yo from Ottawa plays for the Lebanese national team and has scored 45 times across competitions for various french clubs. She will likely play a veteran joker role for Strasbourg who earned promotion last season. The former Gee Gee star concurrently completed her coaching badges while in France, and recently completed her UEFA B license.
There are a further 8 Canadians playing in the lower divisions. Prospects to keep an eye on include young Jasmine Vilgrain who transferred to Rodez from OL2 this off-season, creative Midfielder Maya Ladhani, and Jamaican dual-national. Veteran defender Olivia M’bala is once again expected to star for last year’s relegation side Lille, and Taylor Beitz looks to keep her starting spot in net. Fellow GK Marika Laurendeau returns from a major injury suffered last year with Toulouse.
How to Watch
The easiest way to watch games in Canada is through FFF.tv for free, however, they don’t have the broadcast rights to all of the games and tend to lose out on the matches with the higher-ranked teams to paid broadcasters. You’ll need a VPN and a Canal+ subscription or a non-Canadian DAZN account for these. Canal+ subscriptions start from 20€ a month (approx. $30 CAD), while DAZN’s women’s soccer package is free.