French coach Bernard Laporte dropped both his first choice centres, Richard Dourthe and Franck Comba, from the squad to face Italy in Rome on Saturday week, March 3rd, in their third Six Nations match.
The experienced duo, who were the focus of Laporte's anger in the 22-15 defeat by Ireland last Saturday, were joined by winger David Bory on the international sidelines.
Laporte, who had bemoaned the lack of individual talent in the backs following the Irish match, brought in veteran Emile Ntamack, who played alongside Dourthe in the 1999 World Cup final, and the uncapped 22-yearold Colomiers centre Yannick Jauzion.
Bory, who was taken off during the Irish match, will probably be replaced on the wing by either Xavier Garbajosa moving up from full back or Christophe Dominici with another new face, 23-year-old Pepito Elhorga of Agen, coming in at full back.
Reserve scrum-half Christophe Lassucq makes way for the return of Fabien Galthie, who was suspended for the match, while Gloucester hooker Olivier Azam is dropped because Stade Francais' Fabrice Landreau is fit again after missing the first two matches of the tournament.
Laporte is likely to announce the starting XV next Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh Reivers forward Simon Taylor capped a memorable two days with a recall yesterday to the Scotland squad for the Six Nations clash against England at Twickenham on Saturday week.
The 21-year-old broke his hand against Australia in November and has yet to feature in the tournament so far.
But after being selected in the provisional Lions squad on Wednesday, Scotland coach Ian McGeechan has recalled flanker Taylor in place of Jason White.
But stand-off Gregor Townsend, who plays his club rugby for French side Castres, is still not fit enough to return to the squad from the knee injury he sustained just four minutes into the opening game in France.
But McGeechan revealed he would not be without Townsend for too long.
McGeechan said: "Gregor will be back with us in full training next week. Gregor sees a specialist again tomorrow (Friday) and the indications are he is now running again at 100 per cent in a straight line. "The specialist wanted a look at him simply to give him the go ahead to do full training.
"But I don't want to rush him or think that there is a constraint on how much he can or can't do next week when we are building up to a game like England."
Doubt continues to hang over Fiji's participation in the 2003 World Cup in Australia. A meeting in Adelaide between Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer and International Board chief Vernon Pugh failed to resolve the situation, which arises from Fiji's political situatation.
