Greece, among the rank outsiders when the tournament started, scored the only goal after 65 minutes on Friday when Angelos Haristeas rose unchallenged to power a header past French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez from six metres.

"I want to congratulate my players for this unbelievable victory which was delivered with passion," said Greece coach Otto Rehhagel.

"They kept with the strategy that we had agreed and we won this game. Now we must regroup and are looking forward to the next game with great joy."

Greece will face the Czech Republic or Denmark in the semifinals, while French dreams of becoming the first team to retain the Henri Delaunay trophy are over.

"It's a really big disappointment," said France coach Jacques Santini. "We weren't thinking clearly towards the end of the match.

"We were just rushing forwards and that was not the best way to go about it.

Greece's record in major tournaments had previously been poor, failing to score a goal in the only two they had reached, the 1980 European Championship and 1994 World Cup.

But in two weeks they have beaten hosts Portugal 2-1 in the opening match and now knocked out the holders, a feat never previously accomplished.

It was also the Greeks' first win over France in seven matches since 1958, and a timely boost for the nation less than two months before the start of the Athens Olympics.

Oddly, though, the match lacked the passion and drama of Portugal's penalty shootout win over England in the first quarterfinal, with the crowd largely anaesthetised by the lethargic play.

France were poorer than Greece throughout, however, only briefly coming to life after falling behind.

Even then their play lacked cohesion and focus apart from two late chances which striker Thierry Henry failed to take.

Henry, the leading scorer in England last season and a scourge of defenders across Europe for five years, was virtually marked out of the game by right back Yourkas Seitaridis, one of the leading players in the tournament.

His contribution was immense and the Greek defence was outstanding as they prevented France from scoring in a European Championship finals match for the first time in 10 games since 1996, a tournament record.

Without the injured Patrick Vieira in midfield, France lacked their driving force, and it did not help that playmaker Zinedine Zidane was well below his best.

Zidane and Lilian Thuram set a new record for European Championship finals appearances by playing their 14th matches each since 1996 but Zidane's most notable contribution was picking up a yellow card for a clumsy challenge on Greek defender Traianos Dellas.

Greece had the better of a lacklustre first half and went close to the opening goal after 15 minutes. Giorgos Karagounis's free kick reached Costas Katsouranis whose attempted tap-in from close range was just blocked by Barthez on the line with the Greeks already raising their arms to celebrate.