Toulouse remain in the title hunt after a comfortable victory, while Valenciennes stay rock-bottom.
Marseille slip, while Toulouse stand firm
Toulouse remain in the title hunt after a comfortable victory on Saturday, while Valenciennes stay rock-bottom.
Marseille slipped up in a five-goal thriller and Paris St Germain got back to winning ways.
With few of the top five in action,
Toulouse took full advantage as they staked a claim for a European spot.
Andre Pierre Gignac was the star of the show in their 2-0 win over
Grenoble, bagging a brace with strikes on seven and 19 minutes.
Marseille remain second in the Ligue 1 standings, but missed out on the opportunity to cement their place in the shadow of leaders Lyon.
A remarkable contest at Stade Velodrome saw the home side establish a two-goal advantage through Karim Ziani's 10th-minute opener and a Mamadou Niang penalty on the hour-mark.
However, on 77 minutes
Lorient substitute Morgan Amalfitano gave the visitors hope.
Seven minutes later they were level through Fabrice Abriel and Kevin Gameiro snatched an unlikely winner three minutes from time.
Paris St Germain also have aspirations of achieving a lofty finish and helped their cause with a comfortable 3-1 success away at
Le Havre.
Guillaume Hoarau broke the deadlock on 17 minutes, before Ludovic Giuly doubled the Parisians' advantage with 32 minutes on the clock.
Alassane then pulled one back for the home side two minutes after the interval, but Hoarau sealed the points when he grabbed his second of the game from the penalty spot on 88 minutes.
Auxerre claimed a much-needed win at home to
Sochaux, with the visitors slipping deeper into trouble on the back of another defeat.
Kevin Lejeune scored the only goal of the game after half-an-hour, helping to lift AJA into the top half of the table.
Another side in desperate need of the points,
Le Mans, also secured a welcome success on Saturday.
Mathieu Coutadeur's solitary strike after 21 minutes of their contest with lowly
Valenciennes helped see them home.
St Etienne are also firmly embroiled in the relegation dogfight and suffered a sixth straight defeat as they went down 3-0 at
Lille.
Eden Hazard got the home side up and running on 25 minutes, before Ludovic Obraniak (35) and Robert Vittek (70) rounded off a comfortable victory for Rudi Garcia's men.
A miserable night for the visitors was compounded further by the dismissal of Blaise Matuidi for two bookable offences four minutes into the second half.
Elsewhere,
Nancy were held to a 1-1 draw by
Caen as an own-goal from Florian Boucansaud (72) cancelled out an earlier strike by Steve Savidan (51).
