The top six teams at the end of the regular season (after all the teams played one another twice, once at home, once away) enter a knockout stage to decide the
Champions of France. This consists of three rounds: the teams finishing third to sixth in the table play quarter-finals (hosted by the third and fourth placed teams). The winners then face the top two teams in the semi-finals, with the winners meeting in the final at the
Stade de France in
Saint-Denis. The LNR uses a slightly different
bonus points system from that used in most other rugby competitions. It trialled a new system in 2007–08 explicitly designed to prevent a losing team from earning more than one bonus point in a match, a system that also made it impossible for either team to earn a bonus point in a drawn match. LNR chose to continue with this system for subsequent seasons. France's bonus point system operates as follows: == Teams ==