During stage twelve Christian Seznec beat Joseph Borguet by one second to win the stage as Hennie Kuiper, who started the day in 5th place at 8:00 off the lead joined in the attacks to try to cut into Zoetemelk and Hinault. He managed to win a decent chunk of time back and in the process jumped back into 3rd at +6:09. In stage thirteen however, he would lose back much of the time he gained. Winning the stage three seconds ahead of Rudy Pevenage, was Pierre-Raymond Villemiane who jumped from 10th place up to 6th. Villemiane was a distant threat to the leaders and therefore not pursued by either of their teams, but Hinault did manage to take a three second bite out of Zoetemelk's lead cutting it down to +1:29. In stage fourteen Zoetemelk added 0:20 to his lead over 3rd place Kuiper, 4th place Sutter and 5th place Nilsson, however Hinault was able to get away from Zoetemelk and win back 0:40 on the Dutchman, cutting his lead to under a minute. Finishing atop the stage podium was Demeyer, followed by Esclassan and Kelly.