FIDE Candidates Tournament 2021: French Defense

Let's analyze the following games:

https://www.chess.com/events/2021-candidates-chess-tournament/03/Grischuk_Alexander-Wang_Hao

https://www.chess.com/events/2021-candidates-chess-tournament/03/Alekseenko_Kirill-Nepomniachtchi_Ian

https://www.chess.com/events/2021-candidates-chess-tournament/07/Vachier_Lagrave_Maxime-Nepomniachtchi_Ian

https://www.chess.com/events/2021-candidates-chess-tournament/08/Alekseenko_Kirill-Grischuk_Alexander

The first game is, actually, Petrov transformed into the French Exchange.

Winawer Variation: 2 games, Classical Variation: 1 game.

The following Advance Winawer position appeared 2 times:

Here white has a lot of good options, 8. Nf3 and 8. h5 being the most popular.

Yeah, but the French Exchange gave a draw as expected.

The position in my post #5 appeared in a Korchnoi game (1979) where black won:

https://www.chess.com/games/view/293720

A new French defense game in the 10th round:

https://www.chess.com/events/2021-candidates-chess-tournament/10/Wang_Hao-Grischuk_Alexander

featuring the Classical Variation.

Both Classical Variation games lead to the so-called Steinitz Variation (Classical +Advance):

Here, after natural 4...Nfd7,  the most popular move is attacking 5. f4. However, Wang played somewhat curious 5. Nce2 vs Grischuk: