St-Étienne prove too strong for Nantes

AS Saint-Étienne moved up to fourth in the table with a 2-0 win against FC Nantes in the biggest of Saturday's fixtures in France.

Following an astute ball from Mevlüt Erdinç, Benjamin Corgnet's side-footed effort took a handy deflection off Papy Djilobodji to give Les Verts a 24th-minute lead at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard. With Nantes' leading scorer Filip Djordjević having gone off injured, St-Étienne pressed their advantage, Erdinç putting the game beyond Nantes from the spot after substitute Chaker Alhadhur had handled in the box.

Paris Saint-Germain play third-placed LOSC Lille on Sunday but are already certain to be top at the winter break following AS Monaco FC's shock 2-1 home defeat to lowly Valenciennes FC on Friday night. Éric Abidal's own goal and a David Ducourtioux strike put the visitors 2-0 up, and substitute Falcao missed a penalty before James Rodriguez's 84th-minute effort handed Les Princes a lifeline.

In Saturday's late games, Stade de Reims, OGC Nice and struggling FC Sochaux-Montbéliard all secured comfortable home victories, against AC Ajaccio, Évian Thonon Gaillard FC and Stade Rennais FC respectively, while Toulouse FC versus EA Guingamp and SC Bastia's home game against Montpellier Hérault SC both ended goalless.