There's not much chance of this year's 100th Tour de France, which starts in Corsica a week on Saturday, being won by a Frenchman. That hasn't happened since Bernard Hinault captured the last of his five yellow jerseys all the way back in 1985. But if it's not going to happen this year, then it's at least possible to detect signs of a rebirth that might one day produce a home win. And what that says about cycling in general could be pretty good news.

The French are not entirely wrong when they claim that their riders have been suffering from an unfair disadvantage in recent years. Yes, plenty of their riders served doping suspensions at the height of the EPO era, but it's probably accurate to suggest that French cycling did not go in for the kind of systematic, near-industrial approach to doping found in other countries. So perhaps it is no coincidence that in the era of the biological passport, when riders have to provide base-line values against which subsequent samples can be measured, and when race-speeds are coming down from the EPO-fuelled peaks of a decade ago, the green shoots of a French recovery can be glimpsed in the peloton.

Since Hinault's era, the big French names have been Laurent Jalabert, a winner in the points and mountains classifications, Richard Virenque, another multiple king of the mountains, and Tommy Voeckler, who took the polka-dot jersey in Paris last year. Their successes have been interspersed with individual stage wins by riders not considered to be a threat by those competing for the overall victory, while some of the brightest young hopes have shrivelled in the glare of sudden public expectation. But a win two years ago for Pierre Rolland, then aged 24, at the top of the Alpe d'Huez, followed last year by the same rider's success at La Toussuire and a win for the 22-year-old Thibaut Pinot in a medium mountain stage in the Jura, seemed to be sending a different message.

Sir Dave Brailsford, the boss of Team Sky and an architect of the British cycling revival, is among those noting the change in the weather across the Channel. "They've always had talented riders," Brailsford said this week while taking a break from his own riders' Tour preparations. "But certainly there does seem to be a new generation coming through the French system."

He was reluctant to make a specific comment on the historical effects of doping. "But there's a much more level playing field now," he said, "so young guys with genuine talent can take their opportunities. You've got to give credit to the French structure and the French teams, who've persevered for many, many years, and it looks now they've got opportunities with these guys."

The first sign, he believes, came two years ago during the men's under-23 road race at the world championships in Copenhagen, when a strong team effort by France was capped by a brilliant sprint finish from the 19-year-old Arnaud Démare. "You could see there was a crop of young French guys who were on their way up, and they've continued to progress."

Last year Démare, as a first-year professional with the Française des Jeux team, won the Vattenfall Cyclassic in Hamburg, and this year he has already taken overall victory in the Four Days of Dunkirk, winning three stages. He seems likely to be given his first experience of the Tour next week.

If so he will line up in FDJ colours alongside Pinot, the youngest rider in last year's Tour, during which he also became the youngest stage winner since 1947 and attracted Brailsford's unstinted admiration: "He's fantastic. He's got all-round ability: he climbs well, he's strong, he's resilient, he's got a very good mentality, he's a very good racer – a super bike rider."

Rolland, who has ridden the last two years in support of Voeckler, is taking over the leadership of the Europcar team this time, although there was a scare when a test at the end of the recent Critérium du Dauphiné showed up an abnormally low level of cortisol, which could be caused either by abuse of steroids or tiredness; the French cycling federation decided this week that it was the latter, thus clearing him to ride the Tour. He could be joined by another great prospect, the 21-year-old Bryan Coquard, who has won two stages of the Tour of Langkawi and two more in the Etoile de Bessèges this year.

The French would love to have a rider capable of contesting the final stage on the Champs-Elysées, and they might have found him in Nacer Bouhanni, an aggressive 22-year-old sprinter with FDJ who is currently wearing the tricolore jersey of the national road race champion. Bouhanni will never finish a Tour in yellow but he looks increasingly likely to be going elbow to elbow for a precious stage win with Mark Cavendish one day soon.

Brailsford's sharp eye has been focused even further down the chain. "There's talent in depth," he said, mentioning Kenny Elissonde, a 21-year-old climber with FDJ, who is so tiny that the organisers of this year's Tour of Oman could not find a white jersey small enough for him when he won the young riders' classification, and Warren Barguil, also 21 and another mountain specialist, who rides for Argos-Shimano and won last year's Tour de l'Avenir, a traditional race for emerging talent.

French riders have no equivalent of Clairefontaine, where the nation's footballers are produced, or British Cycling's Manchester-based academy. "It's very much a club structure," said Brailsford, who spent his early twenties racing for a semi-pro team in Saint-Étienne, "and it's a strong one, with riders moving from the amateur clubs through to the professional teams. It's got a long history – there's a lot of experienced guys working in the amateur and semi-pro club structures – so I think the pathway for young French riders is very good."

There's also a more scientific approach to preparation among the current generation of riders and sporting directors, perhaps influenced by British success. "In France," Rolland told Cycling Weekly recently, "maybe it took us a bit of time to see that cycling had changed and we had to change, too. We couldn't rely on the old-school methods."

Illustrating the change in attitude, Barguil told L'Equipe during this year's Paris-Nice that he was aware of the need for transparency in the battle to rebuild the sport's image. "I can tell you all the results of my tests, all my levels," he said. "For example, my haematocrit level is currently 42%, but it's 44 when I'm not racing. The change is normal: when I'm exerting myself, it goes down. I tell myself that these controls are the best possible way of proving our credibility to the public."

So can the French at last entertain the hope of a real jour de gloire? "When we said we'd get a British rider to win the Tour within five years, nobody believed us," Brailsford said. "With France's population and its cycling culture, there's absolutely no doubt at all that they can produce a winner in the very, very near future." And after the agony of 27 winless years, who would begrudge it?