Fulgence Ouedraogo and Yannick Jauzion celebrate France's win in Paris

The win sets up a Six Nations title showdown with Wales next Saturday with Lievremont's side needing to win at least 20 points to take the title.

"We knew it was going to be difficult as they had lost three games and did not want to lose a fourth," he said.

"It's a fortnight after the England defeat, which was an enormous failure for us. We've been waiting for this."

606: DEBATE Wales at home should have enough next week on this weekend's performances TB

Lievremont still found areas for his side to improve after their three-try 25-13 victory at the Stade de France.

"We were better in the set-piece, although we missed a lot of line-outs, and we found what we needed to win and create the opportunities to get through their defence," he said.

"We made a few errors, but overall it is positive."

Lievremont, who has made major changes to his line-up in every match since taking over from Bernard Laporte, refused to give anything away about his potential squad selection for Saturday's match at the Millennium Stadium.

"We will have to see how certain players recover from the game against Italy before we think about the Wales game," he said.

"We will have to think about whether we make changes. We want to keep the continuity going, but we are looking to create a great exploit in Cardiff."

We picked our heads up after a poor second half against Wales last time out and our defence was courageous Italy coach Nick Mallett

Meanwhile, Italy coach Nick Mallett was pleased with his side's performance despite the result.

Mallett's side collapsed to a 47-8 defeat to Wales in their last Six Nations outing.

"I'm very proud of the way they played," he said.

"We picked our heads up after a poor second half against Wales last time out and our defence was courageous.

"We held them to three tries and a couple of kicks and it made me very proud."

He added: "I was pleased we got a try and I said well done to them for that and we have another tough game against Scotland on Saturday.

"France have a real cutting edge and can score tries and at any given moment and we held out well against them."

Italy could have had more points on the board had it not been for a couple of wasted try-scoring opportunities.

But Mallett is sure his side will start to convert chances into points soon.

He said: "We wasted a few opportunities but soon they'll start to stick and I think we are improving."