Bradley Dredge continued to move back towards his best as he posted a brilliant, battling 67 to set the clubhouse target on day one of the HNA Open de France.
The Welshman lost his playing privileges last season but posted his best round of the current campaign with a closing 66 at last week's BMW International Open and continued to trend in the right direction as he got to four under at Le Golf National.
His timing could not be much better with a seven million US dollar prize fund on offer at the third Rolex Series event of the season but he had some European Tour heavyweights just behind him on the leaderboard.
The Ryder Cup will be played here in September and European Vice Captain Graeme McDowell and 2016 player Andy Sullivan were both a shot off the lead, one clear of two more Ryder Cup stars in Robert Karlsson and Thomas Pieters, and South African Dean Burmester.
Karlsson will also serve as a Vice Captain in September and McDowell has spoken of his desire to play his way onto the team if he can.
The Northern Irishman birdied the 11th, 12th and 15th to hit the front and while he dropped a shot on the 16th, he picked it straight back up from 15 feet on the 17th.
England's Sullivan had picked up strokes on the 11th, 12th and 17th but he bogeyed the second after finding the water and McDowell dropped a shot at the first at the top of a very tight leaderboard.
McDowell birdied the second and third to hit the front on his own again but when he bogeyed the fourth it was a five-way tie for the lead and the door was open for local favourite Grégory Havret.
The Frenchman birdied the third and fifth and after a dropped shot on the seventh made further gains on the ninth, tenth and 12th to lead the way, with a McDowell bogey on the seventh putting him two ahead.
Havret bogeyed the 14th to drop back into a tie with Dredge who recovered from a bogey on the tenth with birdies on the 13th, 14th, 17th and third.
Another dropped shot from Havret handed Dredge the lead and when the 44 year old birdied the fifth after an excellent approach, he led by two.
McDowell made the most of the par five ninth to cut the gap to one and Sullivan did the same after birdieing the third but giving the shot straight back at the fourth.
Big-hitting Belgian Pieters endured a roller coaster on the back nine after starting on the tenth as he turned in 36 but he found his game on the front side birdieing the first, third and hitting a stunning approach to the sixth to get within two of the lead.
Swede Karlsson did brilliantly to recover from a double-bogey on the first with four birdies in five holes from the ninth before bogeying the 15th and picking up another shot on the 17th.
Burmester was another man to mount a back-nine recovery, turning in 38 but picking up shots on the 11th, 12th, 16th and last.
Havret dropped a shot on the last to slip into the group at one under where he found himself alongside World Number Two Justin Thomas.
The American turned in 34 from the tenth but a wonderful flop-shot on the third and a 12-foot putt on the fourth had him in a share of the lead before he double-bogeyed the next.
Thomas' countrymen Seung-su Han and Julian Suri were also at one under alongside English pair James Morrison and Chris Wood and, with the wind picking up, that looked to be a good score.
