Despite being down 19 points in the first quarter, France used 28 points and 10 assists from Tony Parker and a full day of rest to hand Turkey their second defeat in less than 18 hours (discuss).

Turkey tasted defeat for the first time when they were eliminated by Greece in yesterday’s quarterfinals.

“Because of the schedule, in not 24 hours we played two very tough games,” Turkey guard Kerem Tunçeri said. “The first maybe 15 minutes we played great, but after that because of our condition we went very bad down.”

Besides Parker, France had three other players in double figures. Nicolas Batum, Antoine Diot, and Florent Piétrus each scored 13 points for Les Bleus.

Hedo Türkoğlu once again scored 13 points in a Turkey loss, and Ömer Aşık added 11 points.

In the other classification game, Croatia defeated defending champion Russia 76-69 behind 18 points and 8 assists from Roko Ukic, giving them the final automatic bid for the 2010 Worlds.

On Sunday, Croatia will play France for fifth place, while Russia will face Turkey in the seventh-place game.

France was the last qualifier for the Eurobasket, having to play in an additional qualifying tournament against the likes of Belgium, Italy and Finland.

Since Turkey is hosting next year’s World Championships, they automatically qualify for the tournament and could be the reason they sat key Eurobasket components Ender Arslan and the team’s leading scorer Ersan İlyasova.

Had Turkey won against France, Europe would have qualified six teams, but since they lost, Europe, including hosts Turkey will bring seven teams to the tournament.