Marc Madiot set the team up in 1997, three years after a riding career that had brought him Paris-Roubaix in 1985 and 1991, and he led it through every rename that followed. Frédéric Guesdon won Paris-Roubaix in that first season. The French national lottery has been the title backer from the start.
The names have tracked the sponsor rather than the ownership. The squad rode as La Française des Jeux from 1997, as FDJeux.com in 2003 and 2004, as FDJ-BigMat in 2012 and as FDJ.fr in 2013 and 2014, before settling on FDJ from 2015. Groupama joined as co-title sponsor in 2018, and the team took the Groupama-FDJ United name for 2026 after the lottery group rebranded itself FDJ United.
Sandy Casar won Tour de France stages in 2007 and 2010, and inherited the 2009 stage that Mikel Astarloza forfeited for EPO. Thibaut Pinot then shaped the team's racing for a decade. He finished third overall at the 2014 Tour de France and won the young rider classification the same year, then took Il Lombardia in 2018. Arnaud Démare covered the other half of the programme, winning Milan-San Remo in 2016 and the points classification at the 2020 Giro d'Italia.
Frédéric Grappe joined in 2000 and was appointed performance director in 2017, running the power-based training model the team built its coaching around. The squad rode Lapierre frames for more than two decades before switching to Wilier Triestina for 2024. A Continental feeder squad was set up in 2019 to formalise the route into the professional team.
Philippe Gilbert turned professional here in 2003 and rode for the team until 2008. David Gaudu, Valentin Madouas and Romain Grégoire all arrived as neo-professionals rather than as signings, and Madouas took Olympic road race silver in 2024. The women's team, which raced as FDJ-Suez, shares the sponsor and took the FDJ United-Suez name for 2026.









