Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Belisol) had already given the French fans something to cheer about when he pulled on the yellow jersey after stage nine, wearing it with great pride on Bastille Day.

Still well-placed overall, lying fifth – five places ahead of team leader Jurgen van den Broeck – Gallopin however, is not done yet.

His audacious late attack looked to have been in vain when Peter Sagan chased him down but another acceleration – within three kilometres of the finish – yielded no response.

Neither the three-man chasing group of Sagan, Michael Rogers and Michal Kwiatkowski nor the bunch could chase down what proved to be a perfectly-timed attack.

His stage win follows that of Blel Kadri (Ag2r-La Mondiale) on stage eight, and means French riders now have two more wins than they did at this point twelve months ago.

With Gallopin spending a day in yellow, Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) occupying the white jersey and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) and Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r-La Mondiale) also well placed overall, could this be the year the tide turns for the French at the Tour?