French champions Paris Saint Germain raise the curtain on their title defence at Lille in a televised Friday evening game in early August, the French Ligue 1 organisers said on Thursday.

Resurgent runner's-up Lyon meanwhile travel to southern giants Marseille on September 20 in the first of Ligue 1's big clashes at the Velodrome stadium on matchday 6.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his PSG teammates await Marseille for the first of their much awaited so-called 'Classico' games on October 4 with the return clash on February 7.

The closest thing France has to a real derby is the bitter regional clash between Lyon and Saint-Etienne on November 8 with the opposite date scheduled for Janary 16.