Leo Michaux

Léo Michaux won France Under-20s a Grand Slam by stealing the last ball of the match against England. It was 31-28, the first clean sweep since 2014, and he was on the floor at the breakdown when it ended.

He is a second row, 2.03m and 125kg at eighteen, and the third generation of his family to play for Clermont. His grandfather Gabriel played there. So did his uncle Simon. So did his father Ludovic. His younger brother Mahé is coming through behind him.

He grew up in Orcival, in the Puy-de-Dôme, and started at ASM in 2012, aged five. The FFR put him in a hundred-player under-16 assessment group in 2023, then the under-18 side for the 2024 Six Nations Festival and the International Series in South Africa that France withdrew from after Medhi Narjissi died. In April 2025 he played for the France Under-20 development side against England and Ireland, starting both Irish matches, and finished that season winning the Coupe René-Crabos against Lyon.

Christophe Urios put him into the Top 14 at Racing 92 in late September 2025, days after his eighteenth birthday, because everyone else in the position was unavailable. Clermont lost. He was good. A contract extension followed within the week, announced alongside Baptiste Veschambre, who is the same age and plays the same position.

Twelve games in that first professional season, six of them starts, plus a Champions Cup appearance against Saracens. He and Veschambre started together in the second row against Wales in the Under-20 Six Nations. His contract now runs to 2030.

He passed his vocational baccalauréat in electrical engineering during the Junior World Championship, which tells you roughly how compressed the last two years have been.

The pairing to watch is Michaux and Veschambre. Clermont have two locks over two metres from the same generation, both already extended long-term, and Thomas Ceyte is 35.