A minute of silence was held at the start of the stage to mourn the nine victims of Friday’s shooting in Munich.
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Bardet’s margin of victory means he now sits second in the general classification (GC), 4min11sec behind Froome, with the Brit just happy to have survived his crash without serious injury.
Earlier, the overall leader Froome crashed on a descent after his bike slipped on road paint.
Froome is a two-time victor of the race and the defending champion.
Australian Richie Porte, Froome’s former lieutenant at Team Sky who now rides for BMC, also attacked several times but on each occasion sat up as if waiting for his ex boss.
Friday’s 19th stage proved him right.
A really nice guy, Romain is a good friend of mine now and a stage win at the Tour previous year and some solid performances since have seen him earn the mantle of France’s new Tour hope.
While his 4min 11sec advantage over second-placed Frenchman Romain Bardet should afford him ample breathing space, the raging battle for the other two podium positions should ensure the pace is high on Saturday and the attacks are numerous.
Bardet also moved up from fifth place overall to second – four minutes, 11 seconds behind Froome.
Riders were hitting the deck with regularity after rain began to fall in the final 50km of the stage, but it was Froome’s crash which threatened to define the day.
Froome ended the 146km Alpine stage on team-mate Geraint Thomas’s bike with a ripped jersey, while he went up to the podium after the race with a heavily-bandaged knee.
Froome said: “I was just trying to stay up front and out of trouble and I hit one of the white lines”. “I’m okay, I’m lucky nothing is seriously injured”.
Froome was descending at a relatively cautious speed of nearly 45 kph (28 mph) when he fell.
Despite the circumstances, Froome caught up with the group of favourites in the brutal final climb to Le Bettex with the help of teammate Wouter Poels. Just lost a bit of skin and I banged my knee a bit.
“It was great to have team-mates around me, Wout Poels in particular”. It just feels good to be one day closer to Paris.
Mollema was one of the many riders who fell in the damp weather, with Daniel Navarro and Tom Dumoulin forced to abandon.
“I’m really grateful I’m not seriously injured. I’m 10th now, but that was not the goal”.
The Giant-Alpecin rider, victor of two stages in the race and second to Froome yesterday, was in tears as he waited for his team auto.
Two-time Tour runner-up Nairo Quintana is third, 16 seconds behind Bardet.
“I finished on Geraint Thomas’ bike”, said Froome.
But he managed to ride along and finish the stage on the loaner bike.
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“It’s going to be hard, really hard”, said Froome. “But hopefully I can rely on my team-mates for one last push to get through the stage”.
