Paris FCParis FC was established on 1 August 1969, when the French Football Federation set out to build a major club capable of representing the capital in the top flight after Paris had gone several seasons without one. Barely a year later, the fledgling club merged with Stade Saint-Germain to create Paris Saint-Germain; the union proved short-lived, and in June 1972 the two sides went their separate ways after a dispute with the Paris City Council over the new club's identity. Under the terms of the split, it was Paris FC – not PSG – that kept the professional Division 1 status and the Parc des Princes, while the newly independent PSG was administratively relegated to the third tier and had to rebuild from there.
That advantage did not last. While PSG grew into the dominant force in French and Parisian football, Paris FC spent the following five decades searching for stability, changing name several times – briefly becoming "Paris 1" and, after a partnership with the historic club Racing Club de France, "Racing Paris 1" – as it moved between the second and third divisions. From 1999 the club settled at the athletics-oriented Stade Charléty in the south of the city, never quite finding a true footballing home there.
The picture changed abruptly at the end of 2024, when a majority stake in Paris FC was acquired by Agache, the holding company of the Arnault family behind luxury group LVMH, alongside a minority investment from Red Bull. Backed by the new ownership, Paris FC won promotion to Ligue 1 in 2025 for the first time since the 1970s, and that same year agreed to move into the Stade Jean-Bouin, sharing the ground with rugby club Stade Français just across the street from PSG's Parc des Princes – setting up the prospect of a genuine Paris derby for the first time in the club's history.
Nicknamed Les Bleus for the navy blue shirts they have worn since the early 2000s, with a crest built around the Eiffel Tower, Paris FC now finds itself, after more than half a century in PSG's shadow, attempting to establish a second major club in the French capital.