The WNBA has experienced a French influence. It could also cause chaos in the World Cup

Before Marine Johannès electrified the Barclays Center with her one-legged 3-pointers, she was a WNBA fan.

At home in France, Johannès leaned into the family computer, watching YouTube highlights from the likes of Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker. But the league itself seemed far away, and not just geographically.

“The WNBA wasn’t even a dream for me,” she said. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

That’s when Johannes signed her first professional contract, playing for USO Mondeville as a 17-year-old. In the early days of her professional career, Johannes faced several players she grew up idolizing.

“My teammates were so excited for me,” she said. “They knew how I was about American basketball.”

It marked a turning point in her young career. Johannes dared to dream. Then she dared to make those dreams come true.

By design, French players have historically stayed in France. Lucrative contracts in the French league, the lack of incentives to travel abroad and the strict rules of the French federation meant that the local product grew but never went global.

Getting players to compete in the US was complicated.

In 2019, when Johannes signed with the New York Liberty, she was the only French player in the league. Now there are 13, including three who play in Brooklyn. She was the catalyst for the French basketball line, helping to make France the most represented foreign country in the WNBA.

“She inspired a lot of people,” said Pauline Astier, a French rookie in the WNBA who plays with Johannes in Brooklyn.

Johannès and Astier are two members of the French national team that will be compete in the FIBA ​​World Basketball Championship for Women starting Friday. The team, which has eight WNBA players, is considered to have the potential to dethrone Team USA.

But when Johannes pursued her WNBA dreams, the French Federation did not share her affinity for American basketball. When she decided to sign with Liberty, it came with a risk. They came true in 2023, when she was left out of the EuroBasket team due to WNBA commitments.

But Johannes is used to things happening. She learned to play basketball by recreating the moves she watched on YouTube. Despite the fact that she did not attend a high athletics academy, she became the youngest player of the French national team. In the end, the risk was worth it.

Her decision helped change the way the French federation operates, opening the door for her countrywomen to join the WNBA. Their arrival has spawned an intriguing new rivalry between France and the US, which began at the 2024 Olympics and will continue this month in Berlin.

But Johannes isn’t the only reason Les Bleues started flocking to the WNBA. Johannès opened the door, but several factors, including increased salaries in the WNBA and NIL contracts, added opportunities with WNBA expansion and cultural changes pushed them through.

The WNBA is officially experiencing a French takeover.

Since 1996, Team USA has collected eight consecutive Olympic gold medals. Which is why, with France hosting the 2024 Games, it would be ridiculous to expect anything other than a Team USA victory. However, the absurd idea almost became a reality.

In the final, Les Bleues held the Americans to 34 percent shooting, including 17 percent from beyond the arc. As the game progressed, it became clear that the Americans were not going to back down. France lost by just 1 point.

Team USA finally had a challenger.

“We all know Team USA is the best in the world,” Johannès said. “But I think it can happen one day – I can lose.”

It’s a possibility that many American fans have never considered. Especially since, aside from Johannes and Gabby Williams (now with the Golden State Valkyries), many of the French players who nearly took down Team USA didn’t play in the world’s best league, even though they were clearly among the best players in the world.

French talent has always remained on French soil. It’s a reality that recruiters and scouts have had to accept, and it’s only changed in the last few years.

Rachel Galligan, global scout for the Minnesota Lynx, has spent the last decade helping international players match with US college programs with her business Go Global Recruiting. Since founding her company, Galligan has only worked with one French player.

“When I went to watch the EuroBasket competition, if you saw France on the schedule, you knew you were going to see a lot of really good players, but it was a waste of time to a certain extent because they just weren’t coming,” she said. “Now I have to be at those games.”

There is an exception to every rule. Adeniyi Amadou, who is starting his first head coaching job at New Mexico State, has become known as a French basketball recruiting expert. But he had a distinct advantage: Amadou grew up in Paris before moving to the US to play college basketball.

Prior to joining New Mexico State, Amadou served as an associate head coach on Tammi Reiss’ staff at Rhode Island, helping the Rams earn an NCAA Tournament bid last season with the team’s first Atlantic 10 Tournament win. Six of the Rams’ 13 players were from France.

When Amadou was recruiting in France, he was looking for a certain type of player. The youth basketball system is different from that in the US, where top talent competes on elite tracks. France’s elite talent attend sports academies such as INSEP, which prepare athletes for professional careers. It also serves as a channel for the French national team. WNBA players Dominique Malonga, Janelle Salaün and Leila Lacan all attended INSEP.

Until recently, players of that caliber were encouraged to sign long-term professional contracts at a young age, which all but ensured their loyalty to the French league. When professional basketball and the money that comes with it are readily available, going to the US for college becomes a much harder sell – even for a Frenchman.

“My opinion has always been that if you want more than basketball, you should come to college,” Amadou said. “If you want academic opportunities, cultural opportunities, language opportunities, why not use basketball to get them?”

That was before name, image and likeness. Now money is at the fore and changes everything at the college level.

Not only does the NIL give Amadou an additional talking point in recruiting, but it also opens up the landscape for other coaches. South Carolina signed 6-foot-7 Alicia Turnebize midway through the 2025-26 season, and UConn signed 5-10 guard Marina Dursa in May.

France have always been protective of their young talent, especially when it comes to those who are in line for the national team.

“The agents saw no profit in sending the children to the United States,” Amadou said. “But now, with the money, everyone sees the benefit of these kids going. Suddenly it seems more worthwhile.”

With salary increases and more opportunities, the federation no longer has a choice but to support its players to join the WNBA, otherwise it risks appearing disingenuous. When Johannes was left out of the 2023 EuroBasket squad, she was caught between the tough demands of the French national team and the WNBA’s prioritization rules, which required her to be present on opening day. She chose the WNBA.

The federation’s decision drew backlash from some of France’s most prominent basketball players, including four-time NBA champion and former national team point guard Tony Parker and current NBA player Nicolas Batum.

“What’s happening around her is unfair,” Parker told French media at the time. “She is an amazing person. She wants to play for the French team. She has not missed a single call-up since 2015. We want Marinac in the French team.”

The federation reversed course: She wasn’t left out of the 2024 Olympic team — the one that nearly kicked out Team USA. Nevertheless, the negative perception of American basketball and its influence is still present in France.

“The American game was seen as not very refined, but more of a game that was based more on athleticism and raw talent,” Amadou said. “Unlike the narrative in France that in Europe we learn how to play the game the right way.”

Each country’s style of play can be traced back to its cultural philosophy, says Amadou. In France, the system is king. Everything from medicine to politics to basketball is based on the idea that we work as a team. Meanwhile, America is considered a culture of individuality. Players score in isolation, using distinctive moves, and even while playing within team boundaries, personalities are fully visible.

Through that lens, it’s easy to see why Johannès gravitated toward the WNBA. There is a magic to her playing that cannot be squeezed into a rigid structure. Johannes is the most popular French women’s basketball player, so her commitment to the WNBA has appealed to other young players.

When Liberty teammate Marine Fauthoux was drafted in 2021, she didn’t even know she was eligible for selection. Now players have more awareness of opportunities outside of France. Suddenly, American basketball seems both desirable and attainable.

Williams, who grew up playing basketball in Nevada and California, did the same thing, just from the other side.

While Johannes was watching WNBA highlights on YouTube, Williams was also on the computer, but studying French. No one was more influential in Williams’ life than her 4-foot-11 grandmother, a Parisian professor who helped foster Williams’ love of all things French, including basketball.

But the transition from American to French basketball was a culture shock. In one of their first tournaments with the national team, heavily favored France were upset. Williams was furious at the loss. Her teammates took it in stride.

“We grow up in this super-competitive culture where it doesn’t matter who steps on the court, I beat you,” Williams said. “In Europe, they grow up in these academies and play against the same people. It’s almost like they compete against each other more than against each other.”

Williams was a lightning rod for change in the French dressing room, bringing American bravado and ambition to a polished system. Galligan calls her “a bridge between two basketball worlds.”

The younger generation also brings a different spark, Williams said. When they lost the gold medal to Team USA, Williams saw anger, tears and determination from Salaün, Lacan and Malonga. “They have a different kind of swagger,” Williams said.

Despite initial rejection by the federation, this new era of French basketball is now accepted.

The best earning opportunities are no longer in Europe — a point Williams discussed with the federation after the new WNBA collective bargaining agreement. It seems that the last string that binds the players to their homeland has been broken.

The WNBA has imported a new wave of talent, and French players are now regularly competing with and against the best players in the world. But the partnership is about to end — temporarily, that is. Despite playing alongside their American teammates every day, the French players have a 1-point loss at the 2024 Olympics weighing on their minds as they begin World Cup play.

“We’re going to beat them this time,” Astier said, eyeing a potential rematch later in the tournament.

Her sentiment captures the changing dynamics in French women’s basketball and on the world stage.

“I like that from her,” Williams said with a smile. “That’s not something I’d ever heard before.”

The USA has a challenger, and a rivalry is born. This is the new normal.