Still, France’s goalkeeper Vincent Gérard was voted man of the match in this Group I game after making 15 saves from 33 shots – a success rate of 45 per cent.

At the other end of the court, Melvin Richardson scored 10 goals as France continued their campaign to regain a title, they last won in 2017.

“It's clearly a great evening, we enter this main round in a good way,” French coach Guillaume Gille, a member of the teams that won the Olympic gold medals at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, told L’Equipe.

“We are halfway through with a match that we must win in two days [against Iran] to put ourselves in the best position for the quarter-finals."

Gérard revealed that France stepped up their game in the second period after a disappointing opening.

"The course continues, let's be happy and keep what has been done well and look at what has been less well done," he said.

“The end of the first period was not satisfactory, it was a bit of a grimace in the locker room, we thought we had missed a lot of things.”

In the other matches in Group I, Slovenia beat Iran 38-21 and Spain beat co-hosts Poland 27-23.

That ended Poland’s hopes of reaching the quarter-finals as under the competition’s format, Teams carry over points obtain in the preliminary round against other sides that advanced into the next phase of the competition.

The top two in each of the four groups then progress to the quarter-finals.

In Group II, the 2021 runners-up and the other hosts, Sweden, beat Hungary 37-28 at the Scandinavium in Gothenburg to remain unbeaten in the tournament.

Hampus Wanne was awarded man of the match with nine goals from 12 attempts.

Iceland remains in second place as they defeated Cape Verde 40-30, Sigvaldi Guðjónsson scoring six times, and setting up a big showdown with Sweden on Friday (January 20).

The other match in the group saw Portugal and Brazil draw 28-28.

Group III is due to get underway with two time defending champions Denmark taking on Croatia at the Malmö Arena.