Cesson-Rennes Métropole

Promotion has come the hard way twice for Cesson Rennes Métropole. In 2009 and again in 2020, the club topped the Championnat de France de Division 2 to earn its place in the Starligue, and the second climb followed a relegation the year before, when a 13th-place finish sent it back down. An earlier brush with the drop, in 2010-11, ended not on the pitch but in an office: Saint-Cyr Touraine, who finished below them, folded, and Cesson was reprieved.

The club grew out of the handball section of Olympique Club Cessonnais, formed in May 1968 by Patrick Gaiffe, and only took its present name in December 2011, once Rennes Métropole put money behind it. It has rarely had much else behind it: even at its best, between 2013 and 2015 under coach David Christmann, Cesson carried the smallest budget in the division and still finished 7th three seasons running. Those years also brought the closest the club has come to silverware beyond promotion, semi-final runs in the Coupe de France and the Coupe de la Ligue, both ended short of the final.

One name runs through nearly the whole modern era: Sylvain Hochet joined in 2009 and stayed as captain until 2024, playing his entire career in blue and pink while winning caps for France. Against HBC Nantes, the fixture known locally as the Derby Breton, that continuity has mattered more than any table position. The club has also had to live down 2012, when a match against Montpellier was later exposed as fixed by players on the opposing side, a scandal that touched Cesson only as the wronged party.

Home games are played in front of 4,500 seats at the Glaz Arena.