Harlequins hooker Julien Rinaldi will captain France in their autumn internationals.

The 28-year-old former Catalans Dragons half-back takes over from former Wigan and Warrington prop Jerome Guisset, who has been ruled out with an elbow injury.

Rinaldi, who has won more than 30 caps for his country and captained them in 2004 and 2005, will lead the French against Scotland, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

"It's a big honour to be given the captaincy and I am really happy to be in this position in our final year before the World Cup," he said.

"This is a very important international season for France. We've only got four games left to play before we arrive in Australia for the World Cup so we really need to fine tune things now."

Today's announcement was made by John Monie, the former Wigan and now France coach, from the squad's training camp at Tignes in the French Alps.

The squad includes Catalans' Australian winger Justin Murphy, one of 10 Catalans players who qualifies on residential grounds.

France meet Scotland in Perpignan on Sunday, October 27, and then play two games against Papua New Guinea on November 3 at Avignon and November 10 at Bordeaux before rounding their programme off against the Kiwis in Paris on November 17.

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