PARIS, Nov 4 (Reuters) - France's second-biggest listed bank Credit Agricole reported on Wednesday an 18.5% drop in third-quarter profit, in line with expectations, as strong results in capital market activities helped soften a blow from higher provisions for bad loans.

Credit Agricole said its net income fell to 977 million euros ($1.14 billion), while revenue was up 2.4% at 5.15 billion euros.

Analysts had forecast net income at 980 million euros and revenue at 5.05 billion, according to the IBES estimate from Refinitiv. ($1 = 0.8574 euros) (Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Matthieu Protard; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)