LIGUE 1

Ligue 1, known as Division 1 until 2002, is the highest professional level in the French football league.

The most successful team is Saint-Étienne, which can boast ten victories in its history.  The longest streak of consecutive victories belongs to Olympique Lyon, capable of triumphing seven times in a row between 2001 and 2008. The reigning champion team is Paris Saint-Germain, who in the 2019-2020 season won the title for the third consecutive time and ninth overall.

At the end of the 2019-2020 season, Ligue 1 occupies the 5th place in the UEFA ranking for club competitions. In 2020 it ranked 7th in the world championship ranking drawn up annually by the IFFHS (6th place at continental level).

Twenty teams compete in shifts in the first round (played roughly between August and December) and back (between January and May). For each match three points are awarded to the winner of the match (starting from the 1994-95 season, after a year of experimentation in the 1988-89 season) and zero to that defeat.

The team that ranks first is awarded the title of Champion of France and, since 2003, has won a trophy called Hexagoa. In addition, the champion team has the right to access the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, together with the runner-up. The third classified will instead play the preliminaries of the maximum continental competition starting from the third qualifying round (Pathway). The fourth, together with the winner of the French Cup, has instead access to the UEFA Europa League (until 2009 called the UEFA Cup) starting from the third qualifying round. The fifth, and in case the sixth, will go to the UEFA Europa Conference League playoffs.