But after working their way back into the game they conceded two more soft scores, then lost lock Ben Thomas to the sin-bin, and never recovered their composure trying to chase the game.

Centre Mathieu Basteraud touched down twice either side of the interval for France with wing Djibril Camara delivering the clinching effort 15 minutes from time before Joe Simpson’s late consolation effort.

Les Bleus were clearly on an upward path after their 29-5 defeat against England a month ago, beating finalists South Africa 17-8 and Scotland 11-6 in the group stages and reaching the fifth place play-off with a 25-13 win over Samoa.

But they were handed the initiative early on in this game as England made a sluggish start and a couple of defensive errors contributed to two tries in the opening 10 minutes.

A gap opened up for fly-half Mathieu Belie to strike in the second minute and flanker Thury struck when England lost the ball on their own throw five metres from their line.

Belie’s two conversions made it 14-0 before England settled and enjoyed their best spell, Greendale going close and the forwards held up before Tait’s cut back close to the base of a five metre scrum to force his way over 22 minutes into the game.

Bastareaud restored the 14-point advantage when breaking tackles from close range under the posts for Belie to convert against the run of play.

Bolt gave his side some hope just before the break, though, with a solo score after chipping over the base of a ruck and reclaiming the ball to score after the bounce bewitched a trio of defenders.

Despite making major changes at half-time – with three front-row replacements sent on and Joe Simpson taking over at scrum-half – their chances evaporated in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Within two minutes Bastareaud had plundered a second score after another gap opened up in front of Belie and England were reduced to 14 men when Ben Thomas was sin-binned for stamping.

Losing the ball going forward gave Camara the chance to race 50 metres to score and Belie’s fourth conversion was followed by a penalty that put the French out of sight.

England didn’t lie down and five minutes from time Simpson added some respectability to the scoreline with a fine try under the posts that Adam Greendale converted.

France weren’t finished either, though, with Thuery adding a second try when England were hustled into another mistake on their own put-in on their own line.

“France’s ability to hit space and off-load killed us and so did our inability to make our one-on-one tackles in defence,” said head coach Nigel Redman.

“All season we've been good defensively, even for half of our game against New Zealand when we really forced them to play, but today we missed one-on-one tackles and they capitalised on it. We allowed them to play well and they took advantage of our hospitality.

“In terms of the effort put in, this group has been outstanding. Even today we’ve scored three good tries. Now in the summer they’ve got to work on their core skills and the areas they need to spend more time on like their one-on-one tackling and their passing.

“We played well against France earlier this season, then got through the group games against Samoa and Argentina without playing that well but with a great deal of fight.

“We actually did quite well against New Zealand and then beat Argentina well too. I’ve told them they have come a long way this season and now they’ve got to go on and finish the job.”

Captain Hugo Ellis, who finished as the side’s leading try-scorer with seven in seven games, admitted the tournament had ended on a low note but that the experience gained would be invaluable.

“In patches we put some good play together but overall it was a poor performance, particularly in defence with the number of tackles missed,” said the London Wasps number eight.

“France had a lot of big ball-carriers in their back-line that we didn't deal with and a good pick-and-go game that we didn't deal with either.

“It's a disappointing end to the tournament. The lads have all worked very hard and you can't take anything away from them for that.

“We had quite a hard draw with three tough pool games and then two more against Argentina and France.

“We've all learned a lot in the last three weeks playing against the best young players in the world and that can only serve us well if we go on to the Saxons, Sevens or senior teams.”

Next year sees the first IRB Under-20 World Championship which will be staged in Wales, where England will be able to draw on players who took part in this season’s Under-18 sides.

“Next year as well as these lads we’ll have another crop,” said Redman.

“This year the under-18s have come through and we didn’t pick from them for the Under-19s this season. We’ll be able to have more competition for places next year and that’s quite encouraging for the future.”

England: David Smith (Northampton Saints); Miles Benjamin (Worcester Warriors), Alex Tait (Newcastle Falcons), Gareth Griffiths (Bristol Rugby; Greg King, Worcester Warriors & Hartpury College, 62), Noah Cato (Saracens); Adam Greendale (Leeds Tykes & Hymers College), Richard Bolt (Exeter Chiefs; Joe Simpson, London Wasps 36); Jack Steadman (Bristol Rugby; Billy Moss, Bath Rugby 36), Scott Freer (Leeds Tykes; Joe Williams, Cinderford, 36), Alex Corbisiero (London Irish; Nathan Catt, Bath Rugby 36), Ben Thomas (Saracens; Tom Denton, Leeds Tykes 55), Matthew Cox (Worcester Warriors; Gregor Gillanders, Leicester Tigers, 14), Jon Fisher (London Irish & Wellington College), Andy Saull (Saracens & Bancrofts School; Garth Dew (Sale Sharks, temp 60), Hugo Ellis (captain, London Wasps).

Replacements (not used): Danny Pointon (Northampton Saints), Tom Bedford (Exeter Chiefs), Tom Lozides (Saracens).

France: Cedric Coll; Erwan Berot, Mathieu Bastareaud, Yann David, Djibril Camara; Mathieu Belie, Morgan Parra (captain); Raphael Olive, Antonin Raffault, Nicolas Agnesi, Yoann Maestri, Jean Roidot, Laurent Thuery, Yohan Vivalda, Raphael Lakafia.

Replacements: Jordan Merle, Clement Ric, Arthur Joly, Antoine Loubiere, Vincent Mehn, Charles Gimenez, Adrien Tomas, Maxime Machenaud, Bastien Fitte, Adam Jaulhac, Louis Madaule.

Referee: David Keane (IRFU).