Blaise Matuidi hailed Kylian Mbappe as "a phenomenon" after the Paris Saint-Germain forward scored twice in the 3-1 friendly win in Russia on Tuesday.
Former PSG star Matuidi teed up the 19-year-old to round off the scoring in St. Petersburg.
And speaking to reporters after the match, he said: "I think that Kylian is getting better and better. He is a phenomenon -- extraordinary.
"Aside from that, I am a bit of a grizzled old veteran so it is sometimes necessary to pull him by his ears to get him to chip in defensively."
The goals made Mbappe the youngest player to score a double for France in the postwar years.
And Christophe Dugarry, who won the 1998 World Cup and 2000 European Championship with France, compared him to Brazilian legend Ronaldo when he was breaking through as a teenager.
"Kylian, alone, took the offensive side of the game completely in hand," Dugarry, now a pundit, said.
"He reminds of Ronaldo when he was just 19 years old -- he is the same!"
Speaking to Canal+, Mbappe said he was hoping to secure a defined role in Didier Deschamps' team.
"In the future, I would like to have a fixed position," he said. "For the moment, I am playing a bit all over the place.
"I think that as the years go by I will need to specialise in a specific role. Whether it is down the middle or on either wing, I need to find a position and consistently succeed in it.
"It is true that I can play everywhere, so I am at the coach's disposition. One day, though, I think that I must specialise in one specific area."
Mbappe picked up a knock towards the end of the match and is a minor doubt ahead of the Coupe de la Ligue final against his old Monaco on Saturday.