French? story of far future with radical human evolution

[ggadbois]

Sometime in the 80's (I believe) I read a novel about the far future with humans evolving to food animals and to overlords. There were also some that escaped to become Jaguar like predators. There is also an interstellar war that the humans are losing.

A super 'human' is bred from a bull human and a captured human/Jaguar that is supposed to be the game changer. The last part of the novel is his adventures in the interstellar war, in part in his learning about the alien society.

I think it was a translation from a French sci-fi novel, although I may be wrong. I have reviewed most of the French sci-fi authors from the 70s and 80s and could not find one with a similar story line.

It was quite an ambitious novel as I recall and I would like to see if it is as good as I remember it.

Thanks for any help.