In some ways, what Les Bleus achieved in Cardiff was nothing special – Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa had already hit Steve Tandy’s side for half-centuries in the autumn.
The home side felt their performance was reasonable – and certainly better than in the round one hammering by England – yet they were still overwhelmed in all departments.
France scored the first of their eight tries after 88 seconds and had three inside the opening 15 minutes, including a 23rd try in 24 caps for electric wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey.
His fellow wing Theo Attissogbe, who has replaced France’s all-time record try-scorer Damian Penaud in the side, scored twice in the second half as the visitors claimed their biggest Six Nations triumph in the Welsh capital.
They could have had even more with an attack marshalled by Antoine Dupont and Matthieu Jalibert racking up 28 line breaks, 31 defenders beaten, 1,136 carry metres and 24 offloads.
“When you play a team like that you have to be good at everything,” said former England and British and Irish Lions captain Martin Johnson on BBC One.
“France had zero worries because they knew they were going to win, they knew they were too good.
“They’re all so comfortable on the ball. When they’re confident and there’s no jeopardy, I was thinking ‘thank god I’m not on that field’.
“It’s so difficult to contain them when they’re that confident and don’t feel that anything is going to go wrong for them.”
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