What France said was that she agrees that "sanctions should be lifted immediately" (which is got headlined); that UN inspectors, rather than replacing coalition forces, should work alongside them; and that the oil currently stockpiled in tanks in Turkey could easily be dealt with through a one-off.
This does not, however, concede any key point. It does not concede any of the UN's total control over oil sales going forward. And it insists on the presence of UN inspectors. All it does is make the US look like the unreasonable party rather than France.
The inspector proposal is perhaps the strongest element. The UK government is strongly for their reentry, and this emminently conciliatory way of putting it is aimed at isolating the US.
The oil control question is a deft reverse. The point at issue is the UN's current legal control over all Iraqi oil sales. The US wants to abolish it so it can have it. To that end, the US has been fairly successfully in portraying France as being against lifting sanctions (a morally untenable position). This makes it clear that's not so, and opens the way for suggestions that the US is trying to steal the oil.
Of course this can only count as a great diplomatic move if there is still a diplomatic game to be played and the US hasn't simply knocked over the board. But even if doesn't affect US behavior, it will have an effect on world and middle eastern and European opinion, which will matter in the medium term.
Michael