Basketball: Kick-off of the Women's Euro where the French dream of victory

Nothing since 2009. That was the year the women's basketball team last won the Euro. Since then, they haven't won any titles, except for the Francophonie Cup in 2017. In the last seven Euros, between 2011 and 2023, Les Bleues have each failed to reach the semi-finals.

In 2025, the Olympic runners-up hope to win their third title in Greece. The European Championship begins on Wednesday, June 18. The French women will face Turkey in their first match, a team they easily defeated on May 25 in a friendly (81-61). They will then face Greece, then Switzerland (1).

Sixteen teams are competing in this Euro, divided into groups of four. Each group will play its matches in four different cities. Group A, France's group, will play in Athens, Greece. Groups B, C, and D will play in Bologna, Italy, Brno, Czech Republic, and Hamburg, Germany, respectively. The top two teams will advance to the quarterfinals. The finals will take place in Athens.

The French team, third in the FIBA ​​world rankings and the top European nation, is one of the favorites in this competition, and they make no secret of it. "We want to go after the [gold] medal that we didn't get," assures Marième Badiane, the player transferred to the Minnesota Lynx in February. "We have the ability to do it, and it would be a disappointment for everyone if that weren't the case," she concludes.

But coach Jean-Aimé Toupane is without some of his best players. With the WNBA season, the American women's league, still underway across the Atlantic, many European players have chosen to stay with their clubs instead of participating in the Euro.

In France, this is the case for Marine Johannes, Carla Leite, Dominique Malonga, and Gabby Williams, the best defender at the Paris Games . Point guard Marine Fauthoux is also not among the twelve players selected, having suffered a knee sprain in early June.

It is mainly because of these absences that bookmakers place France as the second favorite, just behind Belgium. The two teams met twice in early June during warm-up matches. Each team performed well: 91-42 for France on June 3, 60-63 in favor of Belgium the following day.

The "Belgian Cats" defeated Les Bleues in the semi-finals of the last Euro (67-63), before winning the trophy by defeating Spain (64-58). If the Belgians and French finish first in their groups, they could then meet in the final on June 29, for a duel at the top of the table.