Olympique Lyon returned to their characteristic winning ways on Saturday, beating Nantes 2-0 to strengthen their Ligue 1 lead.
The three-times French champions, beaten for the first time this season by Lille in the League Cup first round in midweek, got back on track thanks to almost identical goals by Pierre-Alain Frau and Sidney Govou early in the second half.
Frau showed the way for his team mate 18 seconds after the break when he stole the ball from Nantes defender Alexander Viveros inside the box to score from close range.
Govou made it two on the hour from the same spot.
Frau and Govou will spearhead the French attack in a friendly international against Poland on Wednesday.
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Lille host Monaco on Sunday.
"We were lucky to break the deadlock thanks to PAF (Frau) and afterwards we defended well," said Lyon coach Paul Le Guen, who had to make do with the absence of six key players through injury.
"Despite a couple of chances against us, we got on fine.
APPLYING PRESSURE
Young defender Jeremy Berthod said: "Tonight we did what we had to do. We remained in the lead and put pressure on our rivals."
Olympique Marseille climbed to fifth in the standings with a 2-0 win over struggling Racing Strasbourg 2-0, although their home fans were not out in force after watching their team slip to successive defeats against arch-rivals Paris St Germain.
Only 35,000 of the usual 55,000 fans showed up at the Stade velodrome where, amid boos and whistles, Marseille won their sixth game of the season after goals by Habib Bamogo, in the 54th minute, and Spaniard Koke, in the 69th.
PSG ended an unbeaten run of six matches, going down 3-0 away to Bordeaux.
Stephane Pichot beat his own goalkeeper in the sixth minute and Lilian Laslandes put Bordeaux 2-0 ahead three minutes after the break. Defender Cyril Rool sealed victory 13 minutes from time.
AJ Auxerre remained third in the division with a 1-0 victory at home to Ajaccio.
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