Leblanc's plan involves the French federation (FFC) being given a free hand in picking the team from members of the Agrigel-La Creuse, Casino-C'est votre equipe, ForceSud, La Mutuelle de Seine-et-Marne and Aubervilliers 93-Peugueot teams. Leblanc feels that such a solution is necessary on two main grounds.
Without it, he says, it would be likely that there would be only about 20 French riders at the start (from GAN and foreign-registered teams) and less than about 30 "would not be in line with our philosophy". Secondly, no one French team in Division 2 has in Leblanc's opinion performed sufficiently well in races so far this year (notably Paris--Nice, where Division 2 teams were fully represented) to justify its selection as a wild card.
Roger's Opinion: The solution at least avoids the problem of better qualified foreign teams feeling excluded by a team that's demonstrably (by UCI points) inferior and also avoids the unseemly squabble that presumably would have arisen between the Division 2 French teams over one (or maybe at most two) wild-card slots. One assumes that no single French Division 2 will be given an additional wild-card slot even if it performs staggeringly well in such stage races as the Criterium International, Dauphine-Libere and Midi Libre.
On balance it seems reasonable that France's national race should have a reasonable representation of French riders -- and there are riders of great talent in the Div 2 teams.