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Photo - Fédération Française de Natation
France was one of the ruling nations in the early stages: they were Olympic champions in 1924 and clinched a silver at the European Championships in 1927. This was their last podium finish in the history of the sport. After placed 6th in three consecutive editions (1931, 1934, 1938), they appeared at the Europeans occasionally: were 6th in 1950, 8th in 1958, 13th in 1966, 11th in 1970. Played in Group B in the following editions, came 12th in 1989, 11th in 1991. In the next decades they could qualify only to the editions staged in Budapest (2001, 2014), then managed to book a spot for Belgrade 2016 where they finished 9th. Dropped back to 12th in Barcelona and sank further in Budapest after losing to Georgia in the prelims (0/3) and ended up in the 13th place. In 2022, they made the upset of the tournament by beating Serbia in the crossovers to finish 6th, their best result since 1950. Two years later, the Serbs took their revenge in the same phase and France had to settle for the 9th place.
At the Olympics, beside their 1924 gold, they had two bronzes from 1900 and 1928 and a 4th place from 1936. After that, they barely took part: after 1948 and 1960 they could return in 1988 and 1992 (finished 10th and 11th) and a bit surprisingly they could qualify for Rio where they finished 11th again but missed the cut once more for Tokyo. At the home Games, in Paris they ended up in the 10th place.
At the Worlds they had three back-to-back appearances in 1982 (13th), 1986 (8th) and 1991 (12th) before making it again in 2017 when they finished 14th in Budapest. They managed to qualify for 2023 where they reached the quarters and finished 6th, then came Doha 2024, when they knocked out Hungary in the quarters to reach the semis for the first time in their history. They forced a shootout against Croatia but fell short and lost to Spain in the bronze medal match – then failed to make the cut for Singapore 2025.
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