Historically within the skateboarding industry, Europe has always been looked at as skateboarding’s second home.

The Powell Peralta’s Bones Brigade had a European division in the 1990’s, and 411 Video Magazine produced near-enough annual Summer In Europe editions from midway through that decade, documenting the continent’s summertime contest circuit and all the travel shenanigans and spots hit in between times- they wouldn’t do a Brazilian issue until as late as 2004.

So if continental Europe was skateboarding’s supposed second home outside the US, then three nations within it featured more heavily than others: Cool Britannia, Germany (size of scene) and Spain (spots and steezers galore). Sandwiched in between them all, is France.

France’s contribution to skateboarding has been style, and it is interesting to note that France’s contribution to elite skateboarding (and here I make no distinction over sponsorship status) has been across almost every skateboarding genre you care to mention. You may think every national skate scene of sufficient size has top riders in most popular iterations of skateboarding today, but by way of example Spain never had a top-flight international vert competitor until this current youth generation.

Aurelien Giraud. Curret WSR Ranking: 35th

Ph: Atiba

France, on the other hand, was able to put people in the ring at some of skateboarding’s legendary meet-ups, including their very own Park backyard in Marseille’s world-famous Bowl du Prado (about which a good deal more, later).

So- to bring our historical sweep up to today we would have to acknowledge a long line of French greats from Pierre-Andre Senizergues, Jean-Marc Vaissette,  Stephane Larance to Jean Postec, Jeremie Daclin, Marc Haziza, Julien Benoliel, Flo Marfaing, Terence Bougdour, JB Gillet, Lucas Puig and more.

With all that said, the wider pattern of competitive skateboarding since that era across the board has seen subsequent waves of dominance by first the Brazilians and then Japanese, which alongside something of an Australian golden generation who have brought home the Olympic bacon means that Europe as a continent generally is out-performed by those three powerhouse nations these days.

In fact, were it not for the (dare I say it?) surprise package which has become the Spanish team across the board, European national teams would be collectively further off the World Skateboarding Ranking pace than today. Within that context, France’s current national skateboarding team performance is best viewed through the lens of comparison to those of their historic skateboarding neighbours in the first analysis.

Skateboarding develops differently in different places for reasons connected and un- so let’s dive right in to the current situation with the French team, to see how they are faring against the continental skateboarding heavyweights which surround them on the World Skateboarding Tour.

For no particular reason, let’s start with Street.

While at first glance it may seem that a team with four of their top five currently lying within the 30’s of the WSR is nothing to write home about, there are many caveats.

Joseph Garbaccio. Current WSR ranking: 31st

Ph: Atiba

The first is that within the Men’s team, the top three-ranked Frenchmen are double-Olympian Vincent Milou (30th), hungry and undaunted stealth ripper Joseph Garbaccio (31st) and 2022 World Champion (and Olympian) Aurelien Giraud (35th), all of whom are capable of making a ranking-hopping podium place in the coming year.

Vincent Milou. Current WSR Ranking: 30th

Ph: Kenji

The second factor to consider here- which is true of every nation in the WST and not just France- is that the World Skateboarding Ranking only takes into account the previous 18 months’ results and this allows skateboarders to think tactically about timing their big points push.

Lucie Schoonheere. Current WSR Ranking: 15th

Ph: Kanights

The highest-ranked French Street skater on the WST is 15-year-old Lucie Schoonheere (15th) who has made semifinals on three occasions, and memorably had the home crowd going nuts at the Paris Olympic Games last summer.

Cerise Michaud. Current WSR Ranking: 44th

Ph: Kenji

Jérômine Louvet (34th) placed a best-ever 19th in the Olympic Qualifier Series event in Budapest as well as 25th at the 2024 World Championship in Rome which secured her largest-ever point haul. Cerise Michaud (44th) placed a personal-best 23rd two spots ahead of her compatriot at that same World Championship but it is worth pointing out here that, although it does not affect the WSR, Cerise won bronze at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Slovenia back in 2023, so she is something of a dark horse for the French team.

Nana Taboulet. Current WSR Ranking: 9th

Ph: Kenji

Alongside Lucie’s ascent up the ranks, the other French woman to have asserted herself on the WST over the last few years is Nana Taboulet in Park (9th), who has made back-to-back finals at the last two WST stops including a best-ever sixth place last June. The semifinals to finals cut in Women’s Park on the WST is particularly brutal, so a ceiling has been broken there which will no doubt act as a motivation for Emilie Alexandre who, despite coming 11th in Dubai 2024, lies in 30th having sat out the 2024 World Championship which ended the last Olympic year.

Emilie Alexandre. Current WSR Ranking: 30th

Ph: Kanights

Now, you may recall when we talked both about the impact of Florianopolis on Brazilian skateboarding and the Basque Country on Spanish skateboarding that one of the topics discussed was how terrain nurtures talent. Well, for French Park skateboarding, that place is Marseille.

Nathan Matheron. Current WSR Ranking: 36th

Ph: Kanights

The seafront Bowl du Prado- slick as it is with car body-paint graffiti, and a fine layer of windblown sand- is one of the world’s great skateboarding proving grounds, and all for France’s top four WSR-ranked Men’s Park team hail from there, including the rapidly-improving Noe Montagard (25th) who- at just 15 years old- already looks like a secret weapon in the making.

Tom Martin. Current WSR Ranking: 27th

Ph: Atiba

Right behind him in 27th currently comes three-time French Park champion Tom Martin who comes from a skateboarding family, much like the man synonymous with Marseille, Vincent Matheron (29th) and younger sibling Nathan (36th). We should also big up 2022 Vert World Champion Edi Damestoy who bookends France’s top 40 rankings by holding down that position himself despite having a bad run of luck with injuries over the last few years.

Vincent Matheron. Current WSR Ranking: 29th

In that fact, we see one of the obvious positives of France’s current campaign within the WSR: of the top forty in Men’s Park, five come from France; from Spain, that number is four; from Great Britain two; from Germany that number is one.

Within that context, France’s WST skateboarding program is broadly reflective of those of its large European neighbours: overperforming in some areas, challenged by the comparative availability of Olympic- standard facilities in others, with individual promising newcomers emerging to challenge for team places against veterans who now have some thinking to do.

Noe Montagard. Current WSR Ranking: 25th

Ph: Kenji

In that respect, 2026 will likely be a season of change for Team France as they and the rest of European competitive skateboarding face the challenges of going up against The Big Four (USA, Brazil, Japan, Australia) just two years out from LA28.

Opening Photo: Jérômine Louvet by Kenji.

With thanks to Greg Poissonnier for his insights and assistance.