For only the third time in the history of the men's Tour de France, this year's race concluded without a stage win from any home rider for the French public to celebrate.
The result is a rarity in the Tour's history, with only the 1926 race (12 Belgian wins, four for Luxembourg, one for Italy) and the 1999 edition (wins for Italy, Estonia, Belgium, Russia, Spain, and Australia) featuring a similar lack of French stage winners.
Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) came closest to scoring a victory, the 23-year-old finishing in second place on stage 19 up L'Alpe d'Huez. He was fighting for stage glory with Richard Carapaz and Sepp Kuss before Tadej Pogačar steamed past in the final kilometre to score his fifth win of the race.
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Elsewhere, Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) walked away with two third-place finishes on stages 10 and 14 to Le Lioran and Le Markstein. Again, both days were won by Pogačar.
Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep) scored the next-best French results, both coming away with a fourth place each and stints in the polka-dot jersey.
Elsewhere, home riders including Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor), Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ United), and Netcompany Ineos pairing Kévin Vauquelin and Dorian Godon had little impact on the race aside from a handful of top-10 finishes. Vauquelin, seventh overall last year, finished 36th this time around, while one-time superstar Alaphilippe said this was likely his last outing at the Tour.
The absence of several other top French riders, including Paul Magnier, Benoît Cosnefroy, and Christophe Laporte, also didn't help the cause.
This year's Tour also saw France joined on the 'no-win list' by Italy and Spain, with the 2026 Tour marking the first-ever edition of the race to conclude with no stage victories for the three traditional powerhouses of European cycling.
Filippo Ganna's second place for Netcompany Ineos in the opening team time trial was Italy's best result, while Raúl García Pierna (Movistar) taking third on stage 4 in Foix was the best for Spain.
French riders may not have taken a stage win this Tour, and they haven't won a secondary classification (mountains, points, youth, combativity) since 2021 either, but despite that, the race wasn't all doom and gloom for French fans.
The Tour reached Paris with three French riders in the top 10 as Seixas and Martinez finished in fourth and fifth, while Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies) took 10th. It's the first time since 2022 (David Gaudu fourth, Romain Bardet sixth, Valentin Madouas 10th) that a trio of Frenchmen have finished among the final top 10 in July, a feat also seen in 2011 and 2014.
19-year-old Seixas told L'Equipe he was "really happy" with his debut Tour, adding that he had learned a lot from the three weeks around his home nation, and that he found the experience a rewarding one.
"I'm really happy with how everything went. I didn't crash once, and I never got caught out. For my first Tour, getting through it unscathed with a solid team is truly satisfying," Seixas told L'Equipe after the finish of the final stage.
"When I arrived at the Tour, I didn't know what to expect—and I didn't want to know; I wanted to be surprised. The goal was to figure out how to adapt to the environment and find my bearings. I managed that well; the three-week experience was incredibly rewarding.
"It's very demanding mentally. You can never switch off; you have to get back on the bike every day and think about nothing else. With each passing day, your body wants to push a little less. That's the biggest lesson. It's a battle against yourself. The Tour showed me how far I could go. Now I know I can do it; I know I can last the three weeks."
Bahrain Victorious coach Loïc Segaert said that Martinez, also a first-timer among the top 10 of the Tour, said that his rider's success was down to his consistency across the three weeks.
"He only had one 'off' day during the Tour. But he was lucky, as it came on the first rest day, after a night without air conditioning where it was too hot in his room. Otherwise, he was really consistent… In the past, he often had one magnificent day, and the next, a really difficult one," he told L'Equipe.
"That's the success of his Tour. I think he's managed to gain experience and a lot of self-confidence. He now knows how to manage his efforts, recover well, and focus on all the really important things. He used to be a guy who wasn't sure of himself, at least not always, and who thought a lot about what the media and people would think of him. Now, he's able to stay focused.
"Can he reach the podium one day? It's hard to say, but it's possible. This summer's experience will give him a lot of confidence for next year's preparation. But we mustn't forget that Lipowitz and Vingegaard crashed this year and are still significantly stronger than him. And Lenny was in perfect form; that won't necessarily always be the case every year.
"He's still incredibly young, so he'll continue to improve. But now that the podium is within reach, his ability to reach it will depend more and more on the progress of his rivals. And that's something we can't control."
French fans can hope for more home success at next week's Tour de France Femmes, where Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will start as defending champion, with French riders winning five stages across that last two editions of the women's race.
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