France have resisted making wholesale changes to their team following last weekend's mauling by England, making four alterations to their team for Saturday's Six Nations match against Italy in Rome. Damien Traille, who will play at full-back, and centre Florian Fritz return to the starting line-up behind the scrum, while forwards Julien Bonnaire and Fabien Barcella are also back involved.

Julien Malzieu, Mathieu Bastareaud, Jérôme Thion and Lionel Faure are the men to drop out, with prop Faure not even making the bench.

Sébastien Chabal returns to the second row having played at flanker in the 34-10 defeat to England on Sunday that ended France's hopes of winning their fourth Six Nations title in six years.

Scrum-half Frédéric Michalak and hooker William Servat, called up on Monday as injury replacements for Sébastien Tillous-Borde and Benjamin Kayser, are on the bench.

The other positional change sees Maxime Médard move to the right wing, in place of Malzieu, to accommodate the return of Traille at full-back. Traille, who has been in fine form for Biarritz of late and impressed as a substitute against England, has played only twice before at full-back for his country.

Head coach Marc Lièvremont admitted he was still coming to terms with the poor display against England. "There were things that happened that I still can't explain," he said. "The main disappointment was our lack of physicality. Up front, apart from Dimitri Szarzewski and Thierry Dusautoir who were irreproachable even though they lost some balls, the players just weren't at their level.

"We have gone with the same squad, they have a great chance to wash away what happened at Twickenham. We are keeping our confidence in them and we hope they are going to react."

Michalak, now reinvented as a scrum-half, has been called up for the first time since the 2007 World Cup but only makes the bench. "At no moment did we think of starting him," Lièvremont said. "He has rediscovered his freshness, his appetite, his enthusiasm and we are happy for him to be back in the squad."

Sale this morning confirmed the signing of England World Cup winner Ben Cohen. The former Northampton wing will move to Edgeley Park on a two-year deal from French club Brive.

France's starting XV to play Italy:

Damien Traille (Biarritz); Maxime Médard, Florian Fritz, Yannick Jauzion, Cédric Heymans (all Toulouse); Francois Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), Morgan Parra (Bourgoin); Fabien Barcella (Biarritz), Dimitri Szarzewski, Sylvain Marconnet (both Stade Francais), Lionel Nallet (Castres, capt), Sébastien Chabal (Sale), Thierry Dusautoir (Toulouse), Julien Bonnaire (Clermont-Auvergne), Imanol Harinordoquy (Biarritz).

Replacements: William Servat (Toulouse), Thomas Domingo (Clermont-Auvergne), Jérôme Thion (Biarritz), Louis Picamoles (Montpellier), Frédéric Michalak (Toulouse), Mathieu Bastareaud (Stade Francais), Julien Malzieu (Clermont-Auvergne).