This article explores how sports in France have responded to the challenges of globalization, and also to the opportunities of an increasingly multicultural society. Two case studies are offered in which a distinctive national model may be seen to have been exposed to powerful transnational forces between 1985 and 2015, a period which also corresponds to sport's digital age. The sports primarily targeted are football and athletics, the most visibly international of modern games, as highlighted by their quadrennial showcases: the World Cup and the Olympic Games. The resulting case studies are intended to suggest some of the ways in which the state, the media and the relevant federations have responded to the multiple challenges of the corporate-financed and electronically mediated ‘global sporting system’. Featured athletes include Zinedine Zidane, Lilian Thuram, Marie-José Pérec and Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad.