France, to plunder from Winston Churchill, are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. They lost to Italy and Tonga last year yet reached the World Cup final and rocked the hosts New Zealand before succumbing by a point. They are like a shower with a faulty temperature gauge: heat is a matter of wait and find out.

Like England, France are under new management with Philippe Saint-André replacing Marc Lièvremont as head coach. Unlike their great rivals, they are not rebuilding ahead of the 2015 World Cup. The Six Nations squad is pretty much the one that went to New Zealand.

The difference will be management style. Lièvremont's media conferences were pantomime: he was not a pupil of the Arsène Wenger school of publicly supporting players no matter how wretched their performance. He never wasted a chance to excoriate his charges, accusing them of staying up late, drinking and preferring to talk to their agents than to him.

His selection policy perhaps explained why his team was so erratic. His ploy of playing Morgan Parra, a scrum-half, at outside-half, and leaving a specialist in the position on the bench in François Trinh-Duc, seemed more desperate than inspired and it was perhaps fortunate for Les Bleus that Richie McCaw ended Parra's involvement in the final 20 minutes in.

Saint-André will choose between Trinh-Duc and Lionel Beauxis, one player drafted in after the World Cup, at outside-half. Beauxis is more of a controller and when he was at Gloucester, Saint-André used the big-booted Ludovic Mercier at 10 while at Toulon he had Jonny Wilkinson.

Beauxis, though, suffered a broken nose during Toulouse's victory over Racing Métro on Saturday. He is expected to be fit to face Italy in Paris this weekend, but France now stand alone among the major rugby playing nations of the world in not giving the national coach access to his squad beyond what is enshrined in the International Rugby Board's regulation governing the release of players for Test duty.

So while England were in Leeds and Wales were shivering in Gdansk, Saint-André's players were preparing for a round of Top 14 matches. Lièvremont used to rail at a system he felt worked against the national side, prompting several spats with club coaches. France have won five of the last 10 Six Nations, but Saint-André, playing the diplomat, hopes to gain greater access to his players when the current deal between the leading clubs and the French Rugby Federation ends in 18 months.

Saint-André made his name as a coach in England, first with Gloucester and then Sale, who six years ago broke what was then the monopoly of Leicester and Wasps in the Premiership. While one of his predecessors, Bernard Laporte, spent most of his eight years in charge of France trying to instil the Anglo-Saxon traits of discipline and organisation on his players, only to lose to Les Rosbifs in two World Cup semi-finals, Saint-André will look to tap into another virtue not usually aligned to the French: consistency.

That will start in selection. Lièvremont capped so many players during his first 18 months in charge that Les Bleus struggled to back up performances. In 2009, after France had ended Wales's long run of consecutive victories in the Six Nations, he changed what had been a rampant back row and the result was a heavy defeat at Twickenham.

Saint-André has said he will not be a tinkerman. He has made minimal changes to the squad, bringing in the Clermont Auvergne centre Wesley Fofana, a stand-out player in the Heineken Cup, and the prop David Attoub, who was banned for 52 weeks for eye-gouging the Ulster and Ireland flanker Stephen Ferris in 2009.

France are the bookmakers' favourites for the title, not least because they face England and Ireland at home and take on Wales in Cardiff, a city which is like little Paris to them. They have only lost one Six Nations match at the Millennium Stadium in six and their away record against Wales since 1982 is 11 victories in 14 games.

France look to have the strongest set piece in the Six Nations and Saint-André has always been about laying a firm foundation. If he personified French flair as a player, as a coach he is a pragmatist. Unlike Lièvremont, he will involve the players in decision-making and not look to his captain, Thierry Dusautoir, to act as interpreter and go-between.

Consistency is his keyword, there will be no licence to thrill. France will become harder to beat as he fixes the temperature gauge and his first real test will be against Ireland in Paris in the second round, an encounter which may decide the destiny of the title.