Open de France R2 Leaderboard: Brooks Koepka in hunt as Marcus Armitage leads

Brooks Koepka continued his return to form as a second-round 68 kept him in contention for the lead at the halfway stage of the FedEx Open de France.

The five-time major winner has been struggling with his game for the last six months, and he has not posted a top-10 finish on any Tour since he was runner-up in Singapore on the LIV Golf circuit in March.

He missed the cut in three of the four majors, and he also failed to cash in his last two starts on the DP World Tour at The K Club and Wentworth.

But, encouraged by an opening 69 at Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Breteche, Koepka surged into contention although a faltering finish to his second round left him five shots adrift of Marcus Armitage at the halfway stage.

His front-nine positives mirrored his opening round as he birdied the 5th and 6th before converting a superb second to six feet at the par-5 8th to card an eagle for the second day running.

Koepka picked up another shot at 11 to move to 7-under, but mistakes at 16 and 17 set him back, and he did well to save par at the last to keep himself in the top-10.

Armitage, who led overnight after firing a 64 on Thursday, started at the 10th and birdied two of his first five holes, and he mixed three more birdies with a couple of blemishes on the front nine as he returned a 68.

"It was a little bit of a battle today," said "The Bullet" afterwards. "For some reason, my irons were just going miles. Maybe a bit of gym work that I've started doing this week is paying off already!

"So I struggled with that a little bit, but I've kept my nose in front. Hopefully we can keep going over the weekend."

The entertaining Englishman leads by two shots from big-hitting Aussie Min Woo Lee (68) and Jeff Winther, whose nine-birdie 63 was the round of the day and gave him the clubhouse lead on 8-under par.

Home favourite Adrien Saddier kept up his dazzling run of scoring as a 66 moved him to 6-under alongside the Swedish duo of Mikael Lindberg and Jens Dantorp.

Saddier, who lost out to Alex Noren on the first playoff hole at last week's BMW PGA Championship, kept a bogey off his card on day two and he will carry the home hopes over the weekend.

Defending champion Dan Bradbury narrowly avoided missing the halfway cut on level par, but PGA Tour star Harry Hall could not recover from his opening 74 and crashed out on 2-over par.