France have seemingly dropped the first bombshell of the 2026 Six Nations, with three stalwarts of the French setup set to be excluded from their bumper 42-man squad.
Les Bleus are odds-on favourites to successfully defend the title after winning a 19th Six Nations crown in 2025.
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However, it appears they will do so without three integral figures in the squad of recent years, with head coach Fabien Galthié reported to have made the stunning decision to exclude Grégory Alldritt, Damian Penaud, and Gael Fickou from his training squad.
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France to leave three veterans out of Six Nations squad
With Fabien Galthié set to name his French training squad ahead of the Six Nations on Tuesday, reports in France suggest he has dropped three legends of modern French rugby from the squad.
L’Équipe broke the news on Tuesday afternoon that both Damian Penaud and Gael Fickou would be missing when the 42-man squad was named, a bombshell double call from the French camp.
Penaud holds the all-time try scoring record for the French national team, scoring 40 tries in just 59 caps. Among those were tries at Twickenham and the Aviva in last year’s Six Nations, and two against the Springboks in November.
The in-form Bordeaux star was also the top try scorer in both the 2022 and 2023 Six Nations championships.
Fickou stands as one of the most experienced players in the France set-up, earning 98 caps across a 13-year career with Les Bleus. The Racing 92 centre captained France in New Zealand last summer, and started the November tests against South Africa and Australia.
The news that France have seemingly dropped both Fickou and Penaud was enough of a shock to rugby fans before the second report came through later on Tuesday.
It appears as though La Rochelle captain Grégory Alldritt will also be missing from the initial 42-man Six Nations squad, in news first reported by Sud-Ouest and later corroborated by L’Équipe.
Just last year, Alldritt started every game of France’s Six Nations-winning campaign, being named in the Team of the Tournament after taking over as captain in the absence of the injured Antoine Dupont.
Alldritt also captained France twice only in November, making his exclusion from the squad all the more perplexing.
It’s a trio of shocking, statement calls from head coach Fabien Galthié and his staff, just 16 days before the opening game of the Six Nations against Ireland in Paris.
A cursory glance at French rugby Twitter would suggest that fans of Les Bleus are stunned by the decisions, especially that to exclude record try scorer Damian Penaud.
Should these reports be confirmed on Wednesday, this will certainly add a lot of spice to the Six Nations opener against Ireland on February 5th.
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