In his final press conference as national coach before taking over ailing Premiership side Spurs the 52-year-old accused the players of taking advantage of his being too nice to them which was just about the only thing he accepted responsbility for.

"I tried to protect the squad by not bawling them out in public," said Santini, who took over from the hapless Roger Lemerre after the debacle of the defence of their world crown in the 2002 World Cup.

"Why did I ignore the reality of what was happneing on the pitch? Because I am like that.

"Like one says I was too nice and they betrayed me by taking advantage of that.

"I am going to say what happened, if the players wish too then they can.

"I thought that when we got into the knockout stages the players experience would tell but instead I think after we beat Germany 3-0 in a warm-up match that several of them became complacent," added Santini, who had guided France to a 21 match unbeaten streak till the Greeks rudely dumped them out of the tournament.

Santini, who had a distinguished playing career as a midfielder being capped by France and played in the 1975 European Cup final for St Etienne against Bayern Munich, rejected suggestions he had damaged morale by announcing before the tournament he was leaving - instead it was the players who got the blame.

"There were maybe players who by the time they got here had already moved on from the era of Santini," said the former Lyon coach, alluding to the fact several players didn't really care how they played as he wasn't going to be around afterwards.

When asked had the team lacked leadership against the Greeks especially when they went 1-0 down in the 65th minute he declined to answer save to smile indicating he believed there had been no-one prepared to pull the team together.

Santini put a large part of their failure to go any further down to the lack of technical skills of the players.

"I have not been able to pin anything down as a reason in the few hours I have had to think about it.

"We did not come here in too relaxed a manner or saying we we were too good.

"In order to justify our favourite's tag we had to be really strong on top of our technical game, and that was what let us down in all four matches.

"And of course several players did not play to their normal level."

Clearly he had among others Marcel Desailly in mind, though his selection of him in the 2-2 draw with Croatia upset Bixente Lizarazu and almost cost the French the match.

"My choice visavis Marcel was always clear," said Santini.

"I never told him he was a replacement. The fact he had not played in all the lead-up matches meant there had to be changes in the squad.

"His absence from the starting line-up in the last friendly against Ukraine was down to a specific thing of which I will not elaborate on. He can if he wishes," added Santini, who along with Desailly during the week leading up to the opening match with England had claimed the 35-year-old had a mysterious knee injury.

Santini said the team had lacked a competitive edge to it which was not just down to fatigue.

"Fatigue is not the sole preserve of French players," said Santini, who got the job on the back of delivering Lyon their first title.

"We knew that to go further we needed to be more competitive than we had been in the previous matches. I think the squad had the necessary elements to achieve that but against Greece we only played properly for 45 minutes and that was not enough," added the former French international.

Santini said he had not noticed as some observers had several of the players smiling after the final whistle had gone on their Euro campaign.

"If some people saw the players smiling that is their problem.

"I don't function like that. After the match I got the players and the staff together to speak to them. That is human nature which I attach a lot of importance to," he said.

As to whether the French could rebound from losing the title in time for the qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup finals Santini said they had to regroup quickly.

"Maybe they will bounce back.

"But they will have to do it quickly because the qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup start in two months (they have Ireland in their group).

"I do not know if it is the end of a generation but the squad has a lot of potential."