France racked up their biggest victory over Italy on Friday night to reach the quarter-finals of the 2023 World Cup as winners of Group A.
The match finished 60-7 and moved France onto 18 points, three ahead of runners-up New Zealand who walloped Italy 96-17 in Lyon on 29 September.
Damien Penaud started the party with a try in France's first attack at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon.
Thomas Ramos added the conversion and the full-back extended France's lead to 10-0 with a penalty after eight minutes.
Before Italy could regroup, France had extended the advantage. Penaud kicked the ball into the space behind the Italian defence and winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey gathered, avoided the attentions of two Italian defenders and plunged over the line.
Ramos added two more points and then profited from a deflection off Gael Fickou to collect the ball and score.
He added the conversion to take his night's work up to 14 points in the 24-0 scoreline.
France, who could have been eliminated from the competition with an Italian victory, notched up a bonus point with their fourth try of the evening when Penaud went over for a second time.
Intensity
During the half-time pause France head coach Fabien Galthié told French broadcaster TF1 that his team had to keep doing the basics with intensity during the second-half.
And so they did.
Fly-half Matthieu Jalibert scored a fine individual try. Collecting the ball from the scrum, his dummy pass eliminated Juan Ignacio Brex and he glided behind Alessandro Fusco to touch down.
At 38-0 up, the game won and first place in the pool assured, the question became would Galthié keep his star performers on the field and risk the type of injury that had befallen skipper Antoine Dupont.
A few substitutions came but they failed to disrupt the French flow. Peato Mauvaka and Yoram Moefana racked up the score to 52-0 before Manuel Zuliani finally got Italy on the scoreboard.
Moefana scored his second try as if to punish the impertinence and Jaminet knocked over a penalty at the death to complete the annihilation.
"We wanted to impose our game and that's what we did," said France scrum-half Maxime Lucu.
"We were effectively playing a knockout match and we came through it. We have to recover."
France will find out whether they play Ireland, Scotland or South Africa following the game between Scotland and Ireland at the Stade de France on Saturday night.
