Glasgow came within five minutes of becoming the first Scottish side to win a European Cup tie in France before Biarritz came back to win 21-14 with two late tries from Tongan replacement No 8 Samiu Vahafolau on Friday.
Glasgow, who had surprisingly beaten the French powerhouses 9-6 in Scotland last weekend, were on course for a famous back-to-back triumph when flanker Jon Barclay scored a breakaway try in the 23rd minute.
Barclay even outsprinted Takudzwa Ngwenya, the American winger who made such an impact at the World Cup, on his way to the line.
PHOTO: AFP
That gave the Scots an 11-0 lead after skipper Dan Parks had converted two penalties.
A Damien Traille penalty put Biarritz on the board to make the score 11-3 at the break.
The French side, who were forced to bring in third-choice scrum-half Fabien Cibray after injuries ruled out French international Dimitri Yachvili and Julien Dupuy, cut the deficit with a Traille penalty on the hour mark.
Parks then hit a drop goal to put Glasgow 14-6 in front.
But Glasgow's dream fell apart five minutes from time when their Samoan prop Justin Va'a was sin-binned.
The French took full advantage of their extra-man advantage with Vahafolau crashing over for two tries in the last five minutes.
"I am so proud of this team. You only had to see the wild celebrations among their lads to realize what a magnificent performance we produced," said Glasgow coach Sean Lineen.
"It was great to see the amount of respect the Biarritz players gave us -- but losing is losing," he said.
Biarritz's international full-back Nicolas Brusque praised the spirit of his team.
"We wanted to show everybody that this squad wasn't dead. We put in a lot of work and you can see from tonight that this team has great spirit. It's the most important thing," Brusque said.
The result put Biarritz on top of Pool 4 with 13 points with Glasgow and Saracens on 11, ahead of the English side's clash with Italian makeweights Viadana yesterday.
In Pool 2, Ospreys kept their quarter-final hopes alive with a 16-8 win over Belfast without ever showing the fluidity of their 48-17 victory in the meeting between the two sides last week.
The Welshmen were 6-8 down at the break but the Ospreys stunned Ulster with a fine 52nd-minute try by Justin Marshall.
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