A Barret family, Barret through and through, with Xavier and Emeline the parents, Candice and Valentin the children: internationals, qualified, gifted, ambitious, and strong in the face of every setback.

Two children built for the top level

The children have certain qualities (apples rarely fall far from the tree), and they play at a high level: Valentin, a tighthead prop in the Espoirs side at Colomiers (Pro D2), and Candice, a lock (4 or 5) who fills in at tighthead, in the Élite division at Stade Toulousain. Xavier, the father, runs through it: “She was a French runner-up in 2024, French champion in 2025, and this year French champion and the Grand Slam too, the double, with the Under-20s.”

Justifiable pride. Add a science baccalaureate with merit: hats off, young lady.

Valentin is not doing badly either: the France university team in the year he won the French Espoirs title with Biarritz Olympique, after a convincing start at Castres, then a move to Colomiers. Unfortunately there was an injury, an ankle, eight months…

From baton twirling to the oval ball: Candice’s meteoric rise

Then came Candice: “She started rugby thanks to her brother, she was at the same school, where there was a rugby option.”

Everything moved fast: school sport, a rugby stream, the Toulouse academy, swept up into the elite game with rare aptitude despite a late start. But do not reduce her to her physical potential (rare though it is): there are serious skills there thanks to a past in… baton twirling! Candice enjoys the point, and makes it seriously: “Yes, yes, it helped me a lot because baton twirlers do a lot of work with the fingers, the hands and so on. So for passing, I had to catch up when I arrived at the academy and I trained. I think it helped me have better hands.”

With a science baccalaureate with merit in hand, a university application pointing towards physiotherapy and a first camp with the France forward pack on the horizon, Candice is devouring the game.

Valentin, the brother whose injury made him grow up

And Valentin, the inseparable brother? Not bad either, despite a frustrating end to his recovery but with his potential intact (soon to be 21, 1.88m, 126kg, tighthead prop).

A Valentin whom adversity, with the family’s support, has matured: “I saw the injury as a chance to work and make up the slight ground I had to catch up in upper-body strength.”

And the head is not left behind either: a management and commerce diploma, on the organisational side, at Stade Toulousain as part of a partnership with Colomiers.

And that inseparable bond with his sister, so important: “From the moment she started playing at a club, the four of us laughed about it together saying she would play for France. Dad was ready to ring the France team every evening! In the end, he was not wrong. When she started rugby, he told us that one day she would play for France.”

Emeline, the mother who is “not afraid”

In the family there is the grandfather, the father (Albi forever, and a thought for Éric Béchu…), the son, the daughter, and there is the daughter-in-law, wife and mother: one single person, and so important. Supportive, inevitably: “Thank goodness they did not play football, because I would have been in trouble, I do not like football. I like rugby, but Xavier was not too keen on Valentin playing; so it was me who signed him up. He was six, he was doing judo, and he wanted to play rugby.”

And the mother, wife of a former Albi back-rower, mother of two budding champions in collision roles, not too worried? “Personally, I am not afraid of them taking knocks. Honestly, for Candice, I am not afraid. I was afraid for Valentin at Castres because whenever he gave away a penalty you could feel the pressure; I would look at Xavier every time he scrummaged to know whether it was good or not… I have no fears, I trust them.”

The Barrets are making the most of it

Valentin keeps learning his trade as an aspiring professional in a position that is much in demand when you qualify as a JIFF; his sister will be at a camp with France. The Barrets are making the most of it.