I had two select like this :
<s:select label = "Pays " list="payss" key="pays" value="%{FRANCE}"></s:select>
<s:select label = "Categorie " list="categories" key="categorie" value="%{200}">/s:select>
The second default value works but the first is not, the lists are like this :
payss
:
categories
:
Try
value="%{'FRANCE'}"
OGNL is looking for the variable FRANCE and couldn't find it, because you didn't use it in the valueStack
.