France head coach Fabien Galthie has unsurprisingly decided to keep faith with the majority of the side that hammered Wales last weekend.<\/p>\n
Les Bleus scored eight tries in their 54-12 demolition of Steve Tandy\u2019s men in Cardiff to go two from two in the Six Nations Championship.<\/p>\n
They now face Italy<\/a> looking to make it three successive wins in the competition and 13 of the 15 that started at the Principality Stadium have been retained.<\/p>\n There are just two alterations and they both come at lock where Thibaud Flament and Emmanuel Meafou have been promoted from the bench to potentially beef up the scrum.<\/p>\n The French have not been too dominant in the set-piece and, versus an Azzurri side who have been excellent up front, Galthie probably feels they need the all-Toulouse engine room.<\/p>\n That means Charles Ollivon and Mickael Guillard, who started against Ireland and Wales in the opening two rounds of the Six Nations<\/a>, are now among the replacements.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, France<\/a> are unchanged as Thomas Ramos, Theo Attissogbe and Louis Bielle-Biarrey once again continue in the back three.<\/p>\n Gifted young centre combine again<\/p>\n Fabien Brau-Boirie and Emilien Gailleton were selected in the midfield last weekend after injuries to Yoram Moefana and Nicolas Depoortere, and they did more than enough to keep their spots for the Italy encounter.<\/p>\n Matthieu Jalibert and captain Antoine Dupont are the half-back pairing, while up front, Anthony Jelonch, Oscar Jegou and Francois Cros combine in the loose forwards. The XV is completed by a front-row of Dorian Aldegheri, Julien Marchand and Jean-Baptiste Gros.<\/p>\n France predicted team v Italy: Fabien Galthi\u00e9 to \u2018test the waters\u2019 in response to Azzurri scrum as \u2018devastating\u2019 backline rewarded<\/a><\/p>\n As for the bench, it was this time last year when Galthie<\/a> opted for a radical approach by going with a 7-1 split, coincidently in Round Three against Italy, but he has opted not to do that since the conclusion of the 2025 Six Nations.<\/p>\n After going with the 6-2 in their past two matches in the competition, he has decided to do the same this weekend, although there are some alterations among the replacements.<\/p>\n Peato Mauvaka returns after missing out against Wales while Georges-Henri Colombe comes in for Regis Montagne. Rodrigue Neti, Lenni Nouche and Baptiste Serin remain but Noah Nene is replaced by Pierre-Louis Barassi.<\/p>\n France team to face Italy<\/p>\n France: 15 Thomas Ramos, 14 Th\u00e9o Attissogbe, 13 \u00c9milien Gailleton, 12 Fabien Brau-Boirie, 11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey, 10 Matthieu Jalibert, 9 Antoine Dupont (c), 8 Anthony Jelonch, 7 Oscar Jegou, 6 Fran\u00e7ois Cros, 5 Emmanuel Meafou, 4 Thibaud Flament, 3 Dorian Aldegheri, 2 Julien Marchand, 1 Jean-Baptiste Gros Date: Sunday, February 22 Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n
Replacements: 16 Peato Mauvaka, 17 Rodrigue Neti, 18 Georges-Henri Colombe, 19 Charles Ollivon, 20 Micka\u00ebl Guillard, 21 Lenni Nouchi, 22 Baptiste Serin, 23 Pierre-Louis Barassi<\/p>\n
Venue: Stade Pierre-Mauroy, Lille
Kick-off: 16:10 local (15:10 GMT)
Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Luke Pearce (England), Eoghan Cross (Ireland)
TMO: Olly Hodges (Ireland)
FPRO: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)<\/p>\n