Summary

The French football champions are the winners of the highest league of football in France, Ligue 1. Since the National Council of the French Football Federation voted in support of professionalism in French football in 1930, the professional football championship of France has been contested through Ligue 1, formerly known as Division 1 from 1933 to 2002.

Prior to this, the first division championship of French football was contested through a league run by the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), an organization that supported amateur sport. The USFSA's league run from 1894 to 1919 and awarded 22 league titles before being suspended in 1915 due to World War I and the creation and success of the Coupe de France, which had quickly become the country's national competition.

The USFSA returned in 1919 changing the league into numerous regional amateur leagues that awarded no league title. This system lasted from 1919 to 1926. In 1926, the first division's reins were handed over to the French Football Federation. The federation organized and ran a league composed of the regional amateur league champions called the Championnat de France amateur from 1927 to 1929 and awarded three titles before the league was converted to the professional league that exists today in 1932.

The first champions of French football were Standard Athletic Club, who defeated The White Rovers 2–0 in Courbevoie on 6 May 1894. The initial championship match was held on 29 April but finished 2–2, so the match was replayed. Standard went on to win the French championship four more times over the next seven years before RC Roubaix took control of the league becoming the first French club to win three straight titles beginning in 1902. Following Roubaix's success, the ownership of the amateur league title began rotating back and forth from the north of France to the south of France with Marseille eventually winning the last amateur title in 1929.

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