The French Ligue 1 is at the top of the professional football leagues in France, and the fifth-best soccer league in Europe. Its big-name clubs such as PSG, Marseille, and Olympique Lyonnais regularly make headlines of international sports tabloids. The Ligue Un is also home to some of the world’s best soccer players, including Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Edinson Cavani, and Dani Alves.

Domestically, the Ligue 1 broadcasters are beIn Sports and Canal+, both of which are paid-TV channels offering live and on-demand streams through their online platforms and mobile apps.

Internationally, Ligue 1 has broadcast contracts with just about every country:

Alas, free options are out of the equation for the Ligue 1 fans – you have to pay for your streaming or cable subscription one way or another. But here is the catch – you lose your access to the Ligue 1 streams when you travel abroad. How aggravating is that? You’ve paid for a premium membership to watch the Ligue 1, but just because you go on a vacation or travel for business, you can’t stream your favorite league.

The reason for the limitation is quite pedestrian – your provider has a broadcast license limited to one country or one region at best.

At the same time, you could find yourself unable to stream even if you are in France because many schools and offices now block sports streaming sites on their premises.

If this sounds familiar, you’ve come to the right place because I’m going to show you how to bypass the annoying geo-block and stream the Ligue 1 from anywhere in the world.

The answer to your woes is a VPN. A Virtual Private Network lets you anchor your online connection to a specific country and sneak below the radar of most firewalls. It does so by routing your traffic through a VPN server.

For example, when you connect to a French VPN server, digitally speaking, you browse from France – you have a French IP address, and all sites see you as coming from France, and treat you as a French visitor. See where I’m heading?

Once you connect to a French VPN server, your Canal+ or beIn Sports allows you to access your premium repositories and live-stream the Ligue 1. Voilá.

Moreover, a VPN encrypts your data and routes it through a secure tunnel, which means:

  • Your ISP can’t track your online activities or throttle your bandwidth
  • Your information is secured against Man-in-the-Middle attacks
  • You can browse safely when using public WiFi
  • Copyright trolls can’t track you down
  • You can bypass your school or office firewalls
  • A myriad of gaming and streaming sites are accessible – Netflix US, Hulu, Steam US, iTunes, you name it
  • You can route all your traffic from all your devices through a VPN

Streaming the Ligue 1 with a VPN is not rocket science, and most providers now offer detailed tutorials and live help, including via TeamViewer:

  1. Subscribe to a VPN service and install its VPN client on your device.
  2. Log in and connect to a VPN server in France to stream with Canal+ or beIn Sport (in the UK to stream with BT Sport, in the US to stream with FuboTV).
  3. It might be a good idea to clear your browser’s cache before streaming.
  4. Go to your streaming site – you’re all set to watch the Ligue Un from anywhere in the world.

Not sure which VPN best suits your needs? I have a detailed roundup of the Best VPNs for France and the Best VPNs for Sports Streaming, plus in-depth reviews of each VPN I’ve listed. And you can always drop me a line if you have questions that haven’t been addressed in these guides.

Perfect Privacy

  • Allows unlimited number of simultaneous connections and no logs
  • Accepts Bitcoin, Paymentwall, gift cards
  • Strong encryption
Check best price Perfect Privacy Review

PureVPN

  • Excellent client with pre-configured modes for streaming, P2P, privacy
  • Kill switch
  • Support for wide range of protocols, including OpenVPN
Check best price PureVPN Review

Mullvad VPN

  • Three-hour free trial
  • No registration, even for paid members
  • Accepts anonymous payments
Check best price Mullvad VPN Review

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