France coach Bernard Laporte criticized his team for not mixing up the game enough when they fell behind, but praised England for being mentally strong.
"England showed it is a great rugby nation. We've lost two semi-finals to England now," he said. "In 2003, England was superior. I don't think they were this time, but we still didn't manage to change the outcome."
England is only the second team to make back-to-back World Cup finals; two-time champion Australia won in 1999 and lost the 2003 decider.
The Anglo-Gallic semi-final was expected to be tight and that is exactly what transpired -- with Josh Lewsey crossing in the second minute for the only try of the match.
Andy Gomarsall took a quick free kick from the first scrum and kicked into the left corner, where the bounce wrong-footed fullback Damien Traille and popped up perfectly for Lewsey on the fly.
France made efforts to spread the ball wide but both teams relied primarily on deep, driving kicks for field position.
The French led 6-5 at halftime on two penalties for 21-year-old flyhalf Lionel Beauxis in the 8th and 18th minutes -- the second a 48m shot after England loosehead Andrew Sheridan dragged down the scrum.
He kicked from 40m to give France a 9-5 lead four minutes after the break. But England replied almost immediately with Wilkinson landing a shot from wide on the left after Lewis Moody plucked down a French chip kick to spark an attacking phase that resulted in Matthew Tait getting within 5m of the tryline.
Laporte made two key changes after 50 minutes. He replaced Beauxis, who missed three dropped goal attempts, with the more experienced Frederic Michalak and skipper Raphael Ibanez with Dmitri Szarzewski at hooker.
It was Szarzewski who committed the blunder in front of his own posts with a high tackle on England fullback Jason Robinson leading to England's go-ahead penalty.
Robinson, playing his 50th Test, summed it up: "It wasn't a pretty game but we came up with a great win, a great win."
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