A dark roasted coffee has a unique place in the specialty coffee industry.  I was once told the story of French Roast.  Supposedly the French were importing their coffee from Africa and the quality was so bad that they had to roast the defects out of the coffee.  Thus creating a smoky flavor that made a consistent brew.  Sounds plausable, but what of the Italian Roast name.  Who knows.
 
We cupped our dark French and Italian roasts today.  We like to use Central and South American beans for our dark roasts because they can handle these levels of roast and produce a quality cup.  When we dark roast our coffee we are trying to find a happy medium between getting that "roasty, smoky" flavor and still make it pallateable.  Air roasters are well suited for this type of coffee.  Our French has a certain sweetness that was reminicient of baked pineapple.  This was the main noticable difference between the two coffees.  We found it surprising that the sweetness was in the French rather than the Italian since World Cup Coffee roasts its French as the darker of the two. 
 
When I first cupped the Italian Roast my first thoughts said this coffee is great for those that like that dark roast flavor in their cup.  That should say it all for you dark roast lovers.  Both coffees had that smoky, slight burnt wood with hickory smoke flavor. 
 
Our recommendation is to buy a half pound of each and see what you like with your morning breakfast.  I don't recommend them with dinners becasue they will overpower much of what you will eat.  In a cheese pairing we did some time ago the French worked well with Blue Cheeses but overpowered the others.