Career
His usual position was at scrum-half. He played much of his club rugby for Colomiers, and later on in his career, Stade Français. Former France national coach Bernard Laporte has described him as the greatest scrum-half in French history.
Playing
Born in Cahors, Galthié began his career at a club in Tournefeuille, before joining Colomiers.
He made his international debut for France in a match against Romania in June 1991. In 1991 he found himself getting a call up into France"s 1991 Rugby World Cup squad, replacing the injured Pierre Berbizier.
At the 1995 Rugby World Cup he played in the semi-final defeat to South Africa. In 2000, Colomiers reached the French championship final, but Galthié had to watch from the stands due to a knee injury.
The club lost 28–23 to Stade Français, whom he joined the following season.
In 2001 Galthié was appointed captain of France. Galthié captained France at the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia, and secured France"s bonus point against Scotland in their third game, scoring the fourth try in the game. He did not play in France"s final pool game against the United States.
Following their semi-final defeat, France contested the third place play-off with New Zealand.
Afterwards Galthié announced his retirement from international rugby. Coaching
Galthié became the coach of Stade Français after head coach Nick Mallet departed the Paris club
Galthié was contacted by Max Guazzini to take up the coaching job. He left Paris in 2008 to become a television pundit with the French public national channel France 2 and private radio Europe 1.
He was joined the Argentina coaching staff during their end-of-the-year tour of Europe in November and December 2008.
Galthié signed a three-year coaching contract with Montpellier in 2010. Galthié proceeded to lead Montpellier to a Top 14 Final in his first year although his team had a much smaller budget than the rest of the league and merely a handful of internationally recognised players. His stint as coach came to an abrupt end at the end of 2014 due to poor relations with the President of Montpellier Rugby Club.