Ranking all the top French Players Who Have Passed Through Real Madrid

As a neighbouring country, it’s not surprising that France ranks as the third most represented nation in terms of foreign players at Real Madrid.

The French trail only behind Brazil and Argentina—countries that are much farther from the Spanish capital and only one of which is Spanish-speaking.

Kylian Mbappé is the latest in a distinguished line of French players to join Los Blancos. Some have achieved legendary status, others struggled to leave a lasting impact, a few barely made a handful of appearances, and one found the experience so dull he fell asleep.

Throughout the club's 121-year history, 21 French players have been fully signed members of the Real Madrid squad.

While many others joined on short-term loans, we will focus on those who not only met the high expectations of one of the world's most demanding clubs but also etched their names into the history books.

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Football

Raymond Kopa

Looking further back, Kopa was Real Madrid’s first French superstar. Nicknamed Little Napoleon, he was an integral part of the formidable 1950s Madrid team alongside legends like Di Stéfano, Puskás, Gento, and Rial.

Agile and difficult to defend against, Kopa scored 30 goals in 101 appearances for the club. He made history as the first French player to win both the Ballon d’Or and the European Cup.

Another acquisition by Lorenzo Sanz, he was snatched from Sampdoria for 450 million pesetas, beating Barcelona to the punch.

While his footballing skills might not have matched some of his peers, he had a knack for scoring crucial goals—most notably, the decisive strike against Borussia Dortmund that secured Madrid’s place in Amsterdam, where they went on to win La Séptima.

Anelka was one of the last three signings made under Lorenzo Sanz, with Madrid breaking the bank for the talented forward. However, he never settled in, and criticism from fans and media only made things worse.

Despite his struggles, he redeemed himself with a brilliant glancing header against Bayern Munich at the Olympiastadion in the Champions League, a goal that helped propel Madrid to the final and ultimately to La Octava.

Dependable, rock solid, lightning-fast, and highly aware—Varane possessed these qualities in abundance during his tenure at the Bernabéu.

He is an obvious choice for this list, not only because of his 360 first-team appearances but also due to his unmatched honours, including three LaLiga titles and four Champions League trophies.

Claude Makelele

One of the first signings of the Florentino Pérez era, Makélélé joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2000 from Celta Vigo for €14 million.

He brought strength and tenacity to the midfield of a team heavily focused on attacking. Tasked with cleaning up defensively whenever the team was caught on the break, Claude eventually grew weary of doing the dirty work while being one of the lowest earners in the squad.

Frustrated, he demanded better pay and left for Chelsea in the summer of 2003. His absence was immediately felt, and it took Madrid several seasons to adequately fill the gap in their defensive midfield.

Another club legend, Karim is the longest-serving French player to have pulled on the white shirt and holds the appearances record for a foreign player: 648 appearances over 14 seasons. He was signed from Olympique Lyon in the summer of 2009 as an out-and-out centre-forward to shadow Raúl in the skipper’s final year.

However, it wasn’t all plain sailing from the start and the explosive player that we had seen at Lyon took on a more sentinel role, creating spaces and providing assists for Cristiano than building up his own tally. His highlights reel has some unforgettable flashes of brilliance - who can forget his sublime volley against Osasuna… Benzema’s legacy wasn’t just what he did out on the pitch, it was also all of the little things that went unnoticed - on top of that a not insubstantial contribution of 354 goals, surpassing Di Stéfano and Raúl to become the second top goal scorer in Real Madrid history.

The second Galáctico of the Florentino Pérez era, Zinedine Zidane, known as Zizou, became a legendary figure both as a player and as a coach in two highly successful spells.

Arguably France’s best export to Chamartín, he signed from Juventus on 9 July 2001 for a world-record fee of 73 million euros (12.9 billion pesetas/160 billion lire) at the age of 29, becoming the eighth Frenchman to join Real Madrid.

Elegant, charismatic, skilful, and creative, Zidane made time seem to stand still whenever he had the ball at the Bernabéu.

He is eternally remembered for his stunning volley in the 2002 Champions League final, but the honours he accumulated during his five seasons with the team don’t fully capture his impact. He more than made up for it when he returned as a coach, leading the team to even greater success.