"It's a very balanced group," said France coach Jacques Santini. "We wanted to avoid the Netherlands and I'm pleased we did but we very much respect all the teams."

France and England, who look to be favourites to progress, were drawn in Group B with Switzerland and Croatia.

French midfielder Patrick Vieira, who plays his club football in England with Arsenal, added: "It's better to be in Group B than to be in Group D with Germany, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Holland. That is quite a difficult group because no matter what happens one of the big nations will come out."

"It's going to be a very exciting tournament," he added.

Former France captain Didier Deschamps said: "It could have been worse. England remains a great nation as far as soccer is concerned but France can be quite happy with that draw."

The game between France and England on Sunday June 13 in Lisbon is the highlight of the group's fixtures and the French have plenty of old scores to settle having never beaten England in the finals of a major championship.

ENGLAND DERBY

The teams have met once before in the European Championship in Sweden in 1992 when they drew 0-0 in a group match in Malmo.

They have also faced each other twice in the World Cup finals with England winning 3-1 in 1982 and 2-0 in 1966 when they went on to become world champions.

"Playing England will be a kind of derby for us because there are so many (French) players in the English Premier League," said Santini.

Asked for his reaction to facing England, Vieira said: "We are pleased and worried at the same time because it's never easy to start by playing against a big team like England."

"It's very important for us French who play in England. It's good to play them again. We have been looking forward to this for a long time," said Vieira.

"Both teams will want to start with a win and we know how important the first game is because there are only three games and the first three points will be very important.

"It's going to be an open game and when you see the other two teams in the group you can say that it's going to be an open group and anybody can beat anybody so every game will be difficult for us."

GREAT GAME

Looking at the other teams in the group, Santini recalled the narrow 2-1 victory over Croatia in the World Cup semi-final.

"Playing Croatia reminds me of the great game in 1998 which enabled us to go on and win the World Cup," he said.

"We played against Switzerland a short time ago (winning 2-0 in an international friendly in Geneva in August)."

Holders France were knocked out at the first stage of the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan but have been on top form since culminating in this month's 3-0 win away to Germany.

That victory saw France beat the previous national team record of 12 wins in a row set by a great side spearheaded by Michel Platini from February to December 1984.

Vieira believes France have regained their confidence after learning from the mistakes made at last year's World Cup finals.

"We're quite confident but we know that in football confidence is one thing and to perform on the day is something else. You make a mistake and you learn from your mistake and I can tell you that we learned a lot from the last World Cup. We are quite confident we are going to show how good we are."