The biggest match of the Ligue 1 season so far takes place on Sunday night as Paris Saint-Germain host Monaco at the Parc des Princes.
Both sides have spent lavishly in recent years thanks to foreign investment, but it is Monaco who currently sit two points above PSG at the top of the table.
Sports Mole recently spoke with BT Sport's European football analyst David Ginola about the fixture as well as his time in England playing for teams such as Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur.
Is the Ligue 1 title race just between PSG and Monaco this season?
"A lot of people think Paris will win the league again this year. Fortunately you have Monaco coming through at the moment. They are top of the league, doing pretty well. It will be very interesting to see this game on Sunday because we are talking about the leading team in France in the future.
"Monaco want to be back in the Champions League pretty quickly and the game should be a good indicator of the future of French football."
Is all of PSG and Monaco's money good for raising the profile of Ligue 1?
"It makes an even bigger difference between the teams in France. You have Paris and Monaco and then the rest. Marseille can still spend the money but not in the same way as Paris and Monaco."
Can you see Ligue 1 challenging the other top European leagues in the future?
"Hopefully [the money and star players] will help to promote French football all around the world. At the moment French football is too far back from the Premier League, for example, or the Bundesliga or Spanish football.
"It's been very difficult for French football in the past couple of years with the national team not doing quite as well. We need to have the national team doing well and that will then promote French football."
Can a French team win the Champions League in the next five years?
"The last time was in 1993 with Marseille against AC Milan. I don't know, it would be interesting. They have the potential, Paris. That's for sure. They are good in defence, a great midfield and players who can score a lot of goals. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has proven that he is a fantastic scorer, you've got [Edinson] Cavani, [Javier] Pastore - very, very good players.
"They had the chance to beat Barcelona last season but they did not believe in their chance. They didn't have enough belief in themselves. They were scared of the task."
Is the management change at PSG a good thing?
"I don't think any change like that is good because Carlo Ancelotti was really appreciated by the players, he brought stability to the club. Replacing is always difficult. But, having looked at what happened, he made it clear that he wanted to leave. It wasn't a question of money or whatever, he was really clear about the fact that he wanted to leave the club. It shows that money can't buy everything."
Do you think that Ancelotti will be a success at Real Madrid?
"He has great players there. I think Mesut Ozil is a big loss for them, though. He has already made a point by playing for Arsenal. Sometimes you play in Spain or play in France and you say that moving to England will be different. If you're a good player, it doesn't matter where you play. It's just a football game."
Were you nervous when you first came to England?
"You're always nervous because you don't know what you're going to find. First you have to adapt yourself to the way of life. Everything is new, everything is different so you have to make sure that you take everything on board and you're mentally ready to go.
"It's never been a problem for me. If you sign in July and are voted player of the month in September it means that you've taken everything into consideration. It wasn't an issue for me. It's a difficult decision to leave home but at the same time [playing in England] is not really far away. It's not like going to play in Japan, but, in a way, everything is different."
When were you at your happiest in England?
"Living in London, everything was easier. Living in Newcastle, for example, there were no direct flights from Newcastle to Nice so I had to travel to London a lot.
"Being in London you've got everything, but now Newcastle has changed. It's a more cosmopolitan city now whereas back in the 1990s football was everything. In the city you can see changes now. The '90s were mad. Life-wise, it was easier in London, put it that way."
At which club would you say you played your best football?
"My two years at Newcastle were great under Kevin Keegan, while at Spurs I was supposed to be a luxury when I signed but straightaway everyone realised I was dedicated to the club and wanted to do my best. I think I did that and the reward was being voted PFA Players' Player of the Year in 1999.
"A lot of people in France said I would be in England for six months and then come back, but I stayed for seven years."
How proud were you of winning that award in 1999?
"It's being proud of proving people wrong. I did what I had to do."
Do you still miss playing?
"I do, I do. When I recently played in Newcastle (for Steve Harper's testimonial against AC Milan), we were looking at each other in the changing room before the game and that was really something special. It brought back memories, as simple as that. I was looking at these players who I played with many years ago but it seems like yesterday."
What do make of what's going on at Newcastle nowadays?
"The main thing for a club is stability. If a club wants to have results, you need to have stability at the club, starting from the chairman. You need to be thinking of a long period of time, not what you can achieve this month. Are you going to bring young talent to the top? Are you going to make sure that the club will be successful by having a manager for three, four, five years? At Newcastle everything is there."
Can you see another one of your former clubs, Tottenham Hotspur, winning the league this season?
"The thing I see with Tottenham is that, since Gareth Bale went to Real Madrid, it seems like they are relying more on the team effort. They don't rely as much on individual effort. They are playing more as a team. Over a long period of time I think it's going to be worth it. They know now that they have to rely on each other as a team."
Can you see Bale being okay at Real Madrid?
"It's going to be difficult. We were talking about me coming to Newcastle and for French guys it's no problem travelling around and learning new languages, but for a young Welsh lad travelling to Spain... the pressure, expectation is huge.
"He's got someone beside him in Cristiano Ronaldo who is taking away all of the light away from him. Before he was in charge at Spurs but now Ronaldo has that job. For Gareth, it's going to be different and probably more complicated with him trying to be what he was at Spurs. Now, people are waiting for Gareth to prove whether he deserves to be the most expensive player in the world."
Watch BT Sport's exclusively live coverage of PSG vs. Monaco on BT Sport 1 from 8pm on Sunday 22 September. Build up to the big game with Sunday Night Football, which covers the game across the continent, from 6.45pm on BT Sport 1 on Sunday 22 September.
Jack Prescott
