The France national football team () represents the nation of France in international association football. It is fielded by the French Football Federation (FFF) () and competes as a member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The team played its first official international match on 1 May 1904 against Belgium. Since its first competitive match, more than 800 players have made at least one international appearance for the team. Of them, 105 have served as captain of the national team. This list contains football (soccer) players who have served as captain of the France national team and is listed according to their number of matches captained.
The France national team's record appearance-maker as captain is Didier Deschamps, who led the team out 52 times during his 103-cap tenure, which lasted through three decades. Deschamps is also the most successful France captain, having worn the armband, an indicator of the team's captain, in team victories at the 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000. The Bayonne-born midfielder surpassed the previous record-holder of the France captaincy, midfielder Michel Platini, in the team's semi-final match at the latter competition. Platini became the first France captain to win a major international competition after leading the team in the 1984 European Football Championship. Aside from Deschamps and Platini, only three other players have captained France on over 40 occasions: defenders Roger Marche and Marcel Desailly, and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. Marche is one of two French captains to lead the team at two FIFA World Cup competitions. Desailly captained the team to victories at the 2001 and 2003 editions of the FIFA Confederations Cup. He is one of four players to be sent off in a FIFA World Cup final, one of the other three being fellow France captain Zinedine Zidane. Lloris captained France to victory at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and to the final of UEFA Euro 2016 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
History
The first captain of the France national team was Fernand Canelle, who captained the national team in its first international match against Belgium on 1 May 1904. Canelle went on to captain France only once more in a 7–0 defeat to Belgium in 1905. The team's next captain was Pierre Allemane, who had previously captained a team representing France at the 1900 Summer Olympics. However, this occurred when the team was under the supervision of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), a federation sports union that supported amateur sport. Under the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) governing body, Allemane is the only French player to wear the armband in all of his national team appearances. Aside from Canelle and Allemane, Gaston Barreau, René Bonnet, Étienne Jourde, and Robert Lemaître are the only other players to ever captain the national team on their debuts. Bonnet's captaincy is notable due in part to the fact that it was his only appearance with the national team. The first player to captain France in a major international competition while playing under FIFA was André François. He led the team at the football tournament in the 1908 Summer Olympics and captained France to the worst loss in national team and competition history, a 17–1 loss to Denmark. One of the first permanent captains of the national team was Jean Ducret. He captained the team 13 times between 1910 and 1914.